January 20, 2017

These Aerial Photos Show How Trump’s Inauguration Crowd Compares With Obama’s

The new president claimed his crowd would break records. It fell way, way short of that mark.

Left, the crowd for Obama in 2009; right, the crowd for Trump on Friday.Luis Alvarez/AP; screenshot from EarthCam

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Donald Trump said his inauguration would have “record-setting turnout,” but a quick glance at bird’s-eye photos of his event and Barack Obama’s in 2009 shows how far that claim is from the truth. In recent days, various groups estimated that the crowd for Trump was likely to be between 700,000 and 900,000 people. In 2009, an estimated 1.8 million people flocked to the National Mall to watch the swearing-in of the nation’s first black president.

An astonishing 10,000 charter buses applied for permits for Obama’s event; for Trump‘s swearing-in, only 200 buses applied. In 2009, 98 percent of the city’s hotel rooms were sold out. As of this Thursday afternoon, there appeared to be plenty of hotel rooms available. And while Obama’s inauguration was a star-studded event, many celebrities declined to perform at Trump’s ceremony, leaving him with bands that have almost completely faded from memory.

Update: CNN has a video comparison of the Obama crowd in 2013 and the Trump crowd on Friday:

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In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

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