My feelings of disgust toward the mainstream media (MSM) have only intensified since my recommendation to purge them from your lives.  They remain the festering wart on America's underbelly, replete with hatred and animosity toward traditional Americans.  Since failing in their phony polling efforts to starve then-candidate Trump of votes in critical battlegrounds, they have continued to eschew important suggestions that may preserve their existence, such as telling unbiased truth from time to time.  They went directly into trying to subvert the Electoral College vote and, when that failed, into throwing anything, from so-called "popular vote" totals to Russia to inaugural crowd sizes, at the wall to delegitimize the new president, who was elected in the same fashion that every one of his predecessors has been since 1788.

I had the privilege of attending the Trump inauguration, and I can assure you that there was no shortage of attendees.  While the MSM, spearheaded by The New York Times, attempts to spread half-truths and even full lies, they will also debunk their own garbage from time to time.  CNN was kind enough to release a gigapixel of the crowd, which shows a sea of humanity in the non-ticketed area as far back as allowed.  Refer to the photo below if you don't believe me.

The misrepresentation puts the Trump team in a difficult spot because it does seem petty to bother disputing it if you are prone to believe the media even after they tell more lies than anyone can count.  Keeping in mind that Sean Spicer's most important order of business at his maiden press conference was to correct the lie about the supposed removal of the Martin Luther King, Jr. bust, it is clear that a response of some sort was warranted.  It is, however, not petty to draw the attention of the public to the lies of the press that we can refute with their own gigapixel releases.

The size of the crowd should be a non-issue.  Yes, Barack Obama had more people at his first inauguration than Trump did last week.  He had more people filling in on the sides of the National Mall and closer to the Washington Monument.  If any Democrat failed to outdraw any Republican, I would honestly wonder what went wrong for him.  Here are some simple, back-of-the-napkin visuals, with a little math, to hopefully put this issue on the trash heap. 

Hillary Clinton eked out an 86.8% margin of victory in the District of Columbia to take its three electoral votes on election night.  As you can see in the graphic above, she received over 22 votes for every vote Trump garnered.  Had she won, it is likely that a vast majority of those 282,830 bloated government-dependent voters would have spilled into the National Mall to see her ceremony, just as they did for Barack Obama on two occasions.  When you examine the surrounding area, it becomes even more evident that Washington, D.C. is practically the home stadium of the Democratic Party.

The map above shows a 200-mile radius from Washington as the crow flies.  Within that circle lies all of Maryland and Delaware, most of Virginia, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, half of West Virginia, and a smidgeon of New York and North Carolina.  I used 200 miles for the radius to represent a reasonable distance for a day trip, particularly for families with kids, such as my own.  Referring back to the "home stadium" reference, Washington's neighbors include Philadelphia County (82.4% Clinton); Montgomery, Prince George's, and Baltimore Counties, Maryland (all 75.0% Clinton); Fairfax County, Virginia (65.3% Clinton); Essex County, New Jersey (77.1% Clinton); and New York City (at the fringe of the bubble), where Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the Bronx all cleared 75.0% support for the Democrat, with hundreds of thousands of voters each.  The only conservative regions within the day trip radius consist of generally sparsely populated counties in purple states like Pennsylvania and Virginia.  Torch-red West Virginia is only partly in range and is small in population.

For Trump to pack out the National Mall to the degree in which he did, and to pull in over 31 million viewers on television, is a great accomplishment.  That number of viewers does not count those who tuned in via the internet, whether on home computers or mobile platforms.  Internet viewers represent a growing demographic, particularly when you consider that so many people have to work on Fridays.  Additionally, with so many Americans unable to even come up with $500 for an emergency, a Washington expedition is not an easy choice for a family trip.

In conclusion, no matter how you slice and dice the numbers, the verdict is clear: Barack Obama was so much more popular than Donald Trump that his presidency did not yield to another candidate of his party, but resulted in…Donald Trump. 

Seth Keshel, former Army captain and Afghanistan veteran, is a grassroots coordinator for the Convention of States Project, Texas.