The Consequences of Weak Crowd Numbers

When it comes to presidential popularity, perceptions can matter in less-than-intuitive ways. Anything that can affect perceptions might actually make a difference to whether a new president gets his way with Congress and to how his party fares in the midterm elections -- even if it is something that, rationally, shouldn't make any difference.

The easiest argument in the world is to make the case that turnout at either Donald Trump's inauguration on Friday or at the nationwide demonstrations against him on Saturday just doesn't matter very much. After all, in either case the number of people is far, far fewer than the numbers who voted for Trump (almost 63 million) or against him (about 74 million, including almost 66 million for Hillary Clinton). Nor is there any reason to believe that either attendance number predicts future election outcomes. Barack Obama's record-setting swearing-in ceremony gave way to unpopularity and a Republican landslide in 2010; massive protests against the Vietnam War in 1969 and 1970, the first two years of Richard Nixon's presidency, didn't stop him from winning 49 states in 1972.