This seems to be the official total tally for the April 5th protests.
While there are various techniques including delimiters and “The Jacob’s Method” (which involves the grid system where each person occupies around 2.5 square feet of space) to estimate crowd size, it’s never going to be an exact number.
But this (3+ million) is still a large enough number that can’t be ignored. Yet that is what the legacy main stream press in the US has done by burying the news and size of the protests from the actual headlines. While I have stopped watching cable news, the reports online seem to point to the same thing where several of the main networks didn’t really cover it as it was happening, and then got only short blurbs of coverage (maybe a few shows and hosts like Maddow gave it significant attention). This is unsurprising since many of these organizations are owned by the same billionaire class that has long controlled the narrative.
Additionally, Musk, Felon47 (and his associates) chalk up the protestors as being paid (I know I definitely took no payment) which is rich considering Musk’s $1 million check stunt in Wisconsin. This of course is typical projection on their part.
I also know that one successful protest is only the starting point. This first mobilization is meant to serve as the base foundation to get the folks who were uncertain/afraid of participating in future ones. These future mobilizations are pretty much growing those numbers to lead into stronger actions (including a general strike to bring the economic engine to a crawl because the power of the people is this ability to deny the corporate elites from their pool of labor to get the actual work that powers their businesses, from being done).
After watching recordings of the D.C. speech (since many of us didn’t have a spot closer to the stage), several unions spoke. Getting them into this loop early on is important for when it comes to actually calling for a general strike since they are going to be key for their respective union members. The non-unionized parts will be trickier for sure, but when push comes to shove (when non-unionized workers know they are being abused by management, they will likely take part especially if there are support systems in place).
The success of this organized mass mobilization has also brought out those forces that are trying to sow division (the ones saying things like “it’s not good enough” or trying to detract from the movement by bringing up the other things this movement doesn’t address). This protest (including the prior smaller ones), are domestic focused based on the insanity of what this regime has been doing. The hostile dismantling of the government is front and center along with the fascism that it all entails. If we can’t stop that, nothing else is going to matter. It’s a matter of priorities (and for some of these other movements to try to sow division with Indivisible or 50501, is something that many of us aren’t going to tolerate and will call out because many of us understand the task that is at hand).
Finally, I’m personally not happy with having to core dump this stuff onto this blog where it has pretty much become the main topic (as noted many times before, I don’t care for politics to begin with). I also did not have taking part in protests to be one of my activities in 2025. When your country is being attacked (from the inside), priorities change. Being silent about it is also no longer an option (unless one wants the same/worse outcome as Nazi Germany).
