March For Our Lives Crowd ‘Larger Than Trump’s Inauguration,’ Claim Organizers And Democratic Senator

As hundreds of thousands of protesters descended upon the downtowns of cities across the country to march and rally against gun violence in America, the main event took place in the nation’s capital, where more than 800,000 people were estimated to attend Saturday’s March for Our Lives. Enough people where there, chanting and waving handmade signs, that both event organizers and Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland declared it was “larger than Trump’s inauguration.”

The Hill was the first to report the words of Senator Van Hollen early in the day, who appeared to be making a direct dig at the president when he was quoted as saying, “I can tell you for sure, it’s larger than the Trump inauguration.”

In a separate article, The Hill has also now reported that event organizers are claiming that the crowd in downtown Washington was in excess of 800,000 people, which would make it significantly larger than Trump’s inauguration. The best estimates for the president’s inauguration in January of 2017 are that roughly 600,000 people attended.

You may remember the hullabaloo surrounding the size of the inauguration attendance at the time. The media claimed, and photographs appeared to verify, that the crowd Trump attracted didn’t match the one for Barack Obama when he was sworn in as president in 2009. Sean Spicer, in one of his first acts as White House spokesman, was sent out to claim that Trump’s inauguration drew the “largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe.”

According to the Washington Post, even though celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and George Clooney supplied the money for the march, it was the young men and women who have become known as the Parkland students who stole the show at the event. About 20 young people spoke passionately to the crowd, with student Cameron Kasky summing up the exuberant but angry and determined mood.

“To the leaders, skeptics and cynics who told us to sit down, stay silent and wait your turn: Welcome to the revolution. Either represent the people or get out. Stand for us or beware. The voters are coming.”

Undoubtedly the most powerful moment of the day occurred when, according to the Los Angeles Times, Emma Gonzalez, who has become one of the most recognizable faces of the anti-gun movement in America, as well as a wildly popular media figure in her own right, took the stage. After first naming every one of the 17 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students who were murdered by gunman Nicolas Cruz, she stood silent, with tears streaming down her face, for a full six minutes and 20 seconds, the exact amount of time it took the murders to occur.