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Trump Crowd Size Hotly Debated In Twitter Video Firestorm

by in Daily Edition | July 30, 2023

Donald Trump

Donald Trump, photo: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

One of the potential problems feared from the advent of Artificial Intelligence technology is what’s known as “Deep Fakes” — authentic-looking video of politicians saying things they never said, or even just still images showing people together who were never together. Biden hugging Putin or Stalin, or Trump kissing Bashar al-Assad or Mussolini are examples.

But even without A.I., the trick works: people tend to react viscerally and credulously to images and video they see posted, whether that camerawork describes the event it purports to describe or not. It’s in this nest of ambiguity and dispute that Trump rallies (and their relative sizes) lie — ever since the great debate over his inauguration crowd size started up the “mine is bigger” fight and stoked the fires of reportedly disingenuous claims.

At the core of the debate is a critical question for American democracy: how big at present is the MAGA movement, and is its impact being exaggerated by the media — with the help of Trump’s media manipulators? Is it a juggernaut, as Trump and his team claim? Or is it a modest movement, once strong but losing steam?

As is notable in the post below, people are going to great lengths to try — based on crowd size — to figure out the answer.

Trump opens himself to this kind of analysis and examination, as he presents the crowd sizes at his rallies as proof that the MAGA Trump 2024 movement is surging, which makes the debates over his actual crowd sizes a subject for legitimate political discourse. And a target for manipulation.

One example of manipulation of crowd size perception occurred when Trump was arraigned earlier this year in New York City. Trump supporters posted video online that showed an outpouring of support by large crowds protesting on the street.

But those videos were reruns from a past event, presented as if they were current. In fact, a modest number of people — not insignificant, but not what the videos represented — showed up to support Trump that day. Still, a Twitter user — at a glance — might easily believe that pandemonium was barely averted.

And the game is on again, as Trump campaigns for the 2024 GOP nomination.

A rally in Erie, Pennsylvania looked different from different viewpoints, with some photos posted by Trump supporters purposely or not depicting earlier scenes — in one case showing an outdoor scene when the rally was indoors. See below where Twitter user Ron Filipkowski calls false on a Charles R. Downs post:

Downs defended the post saying it was “a hype video” and posted another that purported to be from inside the Erie location.

Downs used older video, writing “globalist are going to have a meltdown over Trump’s massive rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, tonight.” With writing “tonight,” he posted the video below — evidently from a different Pennsylvania town in the fall of 2020.

It is not in dispute that Trump drew a crowd to Erie and that the crowd is behind his run for President. And that crowd is getting a chance to voice its opinions, especially on conservative media outlets like Real America’s Voice, which delivered interviews with numerous Trump supporters in Pennsylvania like the video below.