The first press briefing by the new White House spokes person was bizarre and devoid of facts as the least popular administration in history lurched through it's first full day in office. Newly minted White House Press Secretary Sean Michael Spicer called the inauguration crowd "largest audience, ever to witness an inauguration, period." He was widely derided as being out of touch with reality while Kelleyanne Conway later made the talk news rounds batting clean up by saying he was simply presenting “Alternative Facts.” The inauguration crowd size could not be precisely determined, but the 275,000 DC metro riders on that day included many people traveling to work.
By the same time the next day, 475,000 people had ridden the DC Metro to the huge Women's march with people still waiting over an hour to board packed trains. Crowd estimates by the media range from 500,000 to 1.2 million with over 2 million more people participating in sister marches around the country. Protest organizers claim it was the largest national day of protest in the nation's history. The massively under reported crowds on February 15, 2003 that turned out to oppose the Iraq War before it's official commencement may have been bigger, but due to police and media under reporting in support of the war, George W Bush was able to call that day of action a “focus group” and history can never be sure about real numbers.
The DC Women's march was one of many across the country that drew huge crowds. There were also other protests against Trump's inauguration and against his neo-nazi supporters both in DC and in Seattle. The results were at least 200 protestors arrested in DC and one was shot by a nazi supporter in Seattle. The police did not arrest the shooter.
While Kelleyanne Conway spewed the administration’s alt-facts some of the day's focus was on the neo-nazi movement that calls itself the alt-right. ABC news was busy giving free air time while pitching open ended softball questions to Richard Spencer, leader of the neo-nazi National Policy Institute, which has called for the “peaceful removal” of non-whites from the US, when an anti-capitalist protestor entered the camera frame and punched him in the face. The viral video is being replayed on the internet. It has already been set to several songs.
No comment on Spencer's getting smacked down has yet been made by Andrew Anglin, Worthington OH Native and founder of the neo-nazi daily stormer. Anglin's father's “Christian” Counseling business drew protests here earlier this month as his planned armed “March Against the Jews” in defense of Spencer's Whitefish Montana business fizzled.
The DC Anti-Capitalist protest later targeted Bank of America. One limousine was burned and windows were broken. Democratic Party operatives lamented the cost to Bank of America while failing to note their role in in 2007 economic crash and subsequent spending of federal bailout money on executive bonuses. DC police cornered the march and over two hundred arrest were made with many protestors still awaiting bail. this stands in sharp contrast to police actions defending Neo-Nazi Trump supporters on the West Coast.
In Seattle a protest against a speaking engagement featuring Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos saw protestors attacked by audience members outside the venue while police stood idly by. A second group of Anti-Trump demonstrators arrived from the city's university district allowing protestors to regain the upper hand in the scuffle. At that point one white supremacist audience member opened fire striking one of the protest organizers in the abdomen. He was treated on scene by protest medics and rushed to the hospital for surgery. He is in the ICU still listed as being in critical condition with life threatening injuries.
His organization, the IWW General Defense Committee, is raising money for his medical bills. The Mockingbird, unlike mainstream publications, is withholding his name as threats from neo-nazis are already arriving to his family and friends. One man later turned himself in to police and was released without charges.
Yiannopoulos' national speaking tour has had multiple dates shut down by counter protests. Audience members at this even were ushered out the back through a parking garage with police asking them to remove all identifying hats, buttons, signs and t-shirts. The police claimed that resources had been strained to “control” the protests, yet no paramedics were immediately available to treat the wounded protestor while riot police were available to sneak the neo-nazi crowd to their cars.
In Portland, where the police captain in charge of the training division has been known to play Hitler's speeches from the loudspeaker in is cruiser while patrolling black neighborhoods, police made five arrests at the outset of an Anti-Trump demonstration, based on charges that had been saved from a demonstration in November. Another protestor was arrested at his home right before leaving for the demonstration.