On Friday, an event was scheduled to take place on the National Mall in Washington, DC that some conservatives believed would spell the end of the Obama Administration, and everything else in the government they weren’t happy with.? They dubbed their rally “American Spring,” named for the famed “Arab Spring” that spread through the Middle East starting in December of 2010.? And organizers were pretty confident the event would be a huge success, estimating that 10 to 30 million Americans would turn up.
So how close did the American Spring movement come to matching that expectation?? Pretty close.? They were only off by about… oh…?carry the two, round that down… about 10 to 30 million Americans.? Estimates for the number of people that actually showed up range from around 200 to 300.? That means you could fit everyone who attended onboard a single?747 commercial passenger jet, and would still have roughly a quarter of the plane’s seats empty.
What was the purpose of the right-wing American Spring rally?? Organizers want the government to more closely follow the Constitution.? They want President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, House Speaker John Boehner, and others to resign from office, or be impeached… conflicting, of course, with their earlier request, seeing as how these?politicians had all been constitutionally elected into their offices.
The rest of the demands of?the American Spring movement had made up a variable grab-back of lunacy.? What really happened with that whole Benghazi scandal?? Why can’t the feds leave poor ‘ole Cliven Bundy alone?? What can we do to stop FEMA from rounding up innocent Americans and interring them in camps?? What should be?our first step toward reclaiming the United States as a Christian nation?? The few demonstrators that showed up were quick to tell the media about those critical issues.
This isn’t the first time a right-wing rally failed to live up to expectations.? In October of 2013, a so-called “trucker rally” aimed to deliver actual, physical gridlock to Washington DC, by clogging up traffic on the Beltway with?thousands of trucks.? Barely dozens actually showed up, however.??And in September of 2013, a somewhat more impressive rally calling itself “2 million bikers to DC” had aimed to bring — you guessed it — 2 million bikers to the nation’s capital.? But only around 50,000 to 60,000 actually attended, well below the seven-figure mark.
Still, despite their abysmal start, organizers aren’t giving up.? Some have pointed toward the Occupy movement, saying it started small and got bigger over time.? There’s a hope that the American Spring movement can do the same, and organizers will most likely attempt to put together more of these rallies in the future.? So don’t worry, folks… it isn’t too late to stock up on popcorn.
Edited/Published by: SB
