What better way to compare attendance of an outdoor event other than photos? There are also DC metro numbers, but they don't seem necessary as we have high-resolution images.
>And people seem to be reading far to much into it in any case.
Seems emblematic of bigger issues. Such as: unwillingness to correct previous mistakes, a penchant for conspiracy theories, ego disrupting day-to-day operations.
Someone posted a good list of possible ways this could be misleading yesterday: http://www.datasciencecentral.com/profiles/blogs/there-are-l...
As far as reading too much into it, I meant that the election of the first black president was a much bigger deal then the 40 somethingth white old dude. I'd expect trumps turnout to be lower and I'm not sure why it would be news in the first place.
But that (and many of the questions in that link) are not relevant to the specific question of how many people were at the inauguration. Which is the topic at hand. Those questions would be more relevant in a discussion of drawing other conclusions from the attendance numbers
It's not that big of a deal, and doesn't mean much that there was less attendance. The weather was bad and it was not historically significant because he's not the first black (or anything significant) president ever. So why is he so blatantly lying? He could just move on and it would be no big deal... but instead he makes a very large deal about it, dedicating a special press briefing specifically to make up lies about to explain how the media got it wrong.
For the health of the republic, I'm keen to see the media become the adversary calling out lies, lies, and all damn lies. No matter what they are. Maybe then we can be free of all the lies.
Executive orders, cabinet appointments and apparently agency gag orders left right and centre with more, plus SCOTUS nominees, to come. But all my Facebook feed talks about is rain and lawn coverings.
And people seem to be reading far to much into it in any case.