Donald Trump’s latest boast about his crowd size fell apart in a hurry as he was fact-checked in real-time while he was still speaking.

“We do a lot of these beautiful rallies, and it’s so great,” the former president said in Reading, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday. “We never have an empty seat, never have, look at it.”

Just one problem: While the sections closest to the stage were packed with MAGA faithful, there were plenty of empty seats toward the back of the venue ― and observers began sharing images of them on social media almost immediately.

An Associated Press photo also shows some of the empty seats…


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  • Adderbox76
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    11314 hours ago

    Trump’s followers are not sophisticated, politically savvy people. They’re attracted to Trump because he’s a bully. He (was) everything that they wish they were because at their heart they just want to laugh at others misfortune and he gives them that.

    But think back to highschool. What happens when someone finally pulls down the pants of the bully; humiliates him in a crowd of people? That’s right. His followers, that group of laughing Hyenas that follow him around, start to ditch.

    Policy doesn’t change a trump voter. Ethics doesn’t change a trump voter. The only thing that changes a trump voter is showing them that their following a loser and a sucker.

    • @ChickenLadyLovesLife
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      32 hours ago

      What happens when someone finally pulls down the pants of the bully; humiliates him in a crowd of people? That’s right. His followers, that group of laughing Hyenas that follow him around, start to ditch.

      You’re describing '80s movies here. In reality, the bullies mostly just go off to college and get great jobs in finance. Or become cops in LA - which is what my personal high school bully did.

    • @[email protected]
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      256 hours ago

      I think this is kind of reductive.

      I mean it’s a nice narrative and sounds like what we want to hear but is it really true? Trump has had his metaphoric pants pulled down a bunch of times but he has more influence than ever.

      I don’t think there’s any simple 3 sentence explanation. Trump is a symptom of a complex array of interconnected problems.

        • @Dearth
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          05 hours ago

          More than half. But not all bigots are the same. Some are bashful aboutv their bigotry. Some are blind to their bigotry. Some are ashamed of their bigotry.

          But trump and his followers are proud of their bigotry. Luckily they represent a minor percentage of Americans. Unfortunately they represent a large percentage of voting Americans

      • KillingTimeItself
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        55 hours ago

        it’s highly oversimplified and using really shitty language.

        The correct way to phrase this would be “trump and his sycophants mirror the language styles of the nazis and their fascist rhetoric, their behavior is akin to that of a fascist.”

    • @LouNeko
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      66 hours ago

      What happens when someone finally pulls down the pants of the bully

      You get your face rearranged and the school protects the bully.

    • @[email protected]
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      1112 hours ago

      This is a perfect description of him and his followers. Seriously. I’d award this shit if I could.

      • @pikmeir
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        510 hours ago

        Where’s Lemmy silver /s

        • @[email protected]
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          310 hours ago

          Seriously though. This was a very astute observation. I may use it (with credit) when necessary.

          It’s that good.

          • @Masta_Chief
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            47 hours ago

            I would happily award comments or posts with lemmy gold or whatever if it actually went to server costs and the like. But the enshittification of reddit and every other major platform has made me wary to spend any money on anything.

  • @SassyRamen
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    18217 hours ago

    Can we all agree to quit linking to twitter? Fuck Musk

    • @CharlesDarwin
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      32 hours ago

      I like the libredirect plugin which redirects to Nitter at least.

    • CubitOom
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      -11015 hours ago

      We also need to start calling it the name it actually is, X

      • @[email protected]
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        116 hours ago

        I’ll never call it X.

        It’s twitter. Perhaps xitter if you must. On mastodon it’s universally referred to as “the other place” which is acceptable.

      • Tiefling IRL
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        11 hours ago

        As someone who’s been transitioning for over a decade, I’d like to take a moment to remind everyone that it’s perfectly ok- if not encouraged to deadname Twitter for as long as Elongated Muskrat continues to deadname his child. And then some.

        • @[email protected]
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          32 hours ago

          Moreover, Twitter/X is a company, not a person. There are no feelings to be hurt or rights to be protected. If their owner picked a stupid name, they deserve to be laughed at. If they picked a vague name, it deserves to be ignored.

      • @frunch
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        11 hours ago

        Hmmmmmm… No 🙂

        Once they stop using Twitter.com perhaps I’ll reevaluate my stance

        • CubitOom
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          -710 hours ago

          I doubt he cares what people call his platform. All musk cares about is that people still use it. That what sells ads

          However I think the more we keep referring to what it was, the longer people will continue to use it. X deserve the same treatment as truth social.

          I guess my opinion is pretty unpopular for a lot of different reasons but I think the longer we call it Twitter the slower it dies.

          • @[email protected]
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            10 hours ago

            Disagree. A clown with an ego like what he has would be incredibly butt-hurt if people didn’t fall in line with his bullshit. Just like his hero, Trump- he falls apart when people don’t play along.

            So… I’ll keep calling it Twitter because I don’t want it to die, I just want it to fail- and remain a monument of his failure until long after he is gone.

      • @almar_quigley
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        3415 hours ago

        No, x is dumb and I refuse to call it that.

        • CubitOom
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          -614 hours ago

          I agree that X is dumb but instead of not calling it that I just refuse to use it. To say that X is still twitter negates all the issues that Elon caused when he bought it.

          Twitter is dead.

          • @wildcardology
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            15 hours ago

            Twitter is dead but by calling it X , it lives .

      • @StupidBrotherInLaw
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        2114 hours ago

        Do you mean X, formerly Twitter? I had trouble hearing you with Elon’s dick in your mouth.

        • CubitOom
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          14 hours ago

          No I mean X. It’s not like calling it Twitter or X formally Twitter is an effective protest.

          We need to stop using X because it is owned by a fascist asshole who is bank rolling other fascist assholes.

          X killed Twitter, it’s dead. I never used it, and have no fond memories of it so for me it quite easy to accept.

          It’s ike saying Darth Vader formally known as Anakin Skywalker. Like yeah that’s factually true but misses kinda everything about the depth if the change.

          X is not a place for free speech or freedom of any kind. It is an extreme right propaganda machine with ads. And if you have a hard time remembering that, it might be that you are calling it by the wrong name.

          • @Sonicdemon86
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            2212 hours ago

            If he can deadname his daughter, we can deadname his site.

          • @[email protected]
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            313 hours ago

            This is stupid, but I propose something like:

            “X VanTwitter”

            Which keeps the familial association to its former identity in a widely recognizable way.

            Perhaps De/Der/DenTwitter.

            Like I said, stupid. 😂

      • @MrPoopbutt
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        1414 hours ago

        It is twitter.

        Elon can say “these are no longer cars, they’re now called Gloobpeepoops” but that doesn’t make it so. He is not the king of words.

        • CubitOom
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          -1014 hours ago

          Twitter is to X as Anikin Skywalker is to Darth Vader.

          I’m glad musk made one of the dumbest businesses decisions in modern history to change the name. It’s easy to see the line where Twitter once was a place of free speech and now X is a place of right wing propaganda.

          The name shouldn’t be protested. The company should be boycotted.

    • FenrirIII
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      1917 hours ago

      You can’t fix stupid.

      • @HappycamperNZ
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        1115 hours ago

        You can fix it.

        Just takes time, critical thinking, good education and a little murder.

    • @shalafi
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      013 hours ago

      I was going to say, that’s hardly a small crowd. This article is BS.

  • Zerlyna
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    4919 hours ago

    I get two tickets to ALL his indoor events. 😁🤣

    • mad_asshatter
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      1918 hours ago

      If you get a valid link to acquire tix for his MSG Nazi Redux, it would be a shame if it were shared.

      • Zerlyna
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        12 hours ago

        https://www.donaldjtrump.com/events

        You have to give them a phone number that can receive authorization codes. But I’ve been doing this for over a month and I have NOT received any spam texts or emails from other groups.

        • @billbasher
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          514 hours ago

          There is this too - I used it awhile back so I’m not sure if it still works. I do temp emails on sites that just want a quick login so you can download something and it works great.

          https://receive-smss.com/

          • Zerlyna
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            312 hours ago

            Do they allow authorization codes? I have a text free number and you have to pay $10 a month to show those. Sucks.

            • @billbasher
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              29 hours ago

              They used to. You would need to try and see but it’s free. I haven’t used it for that in over a year though

  • @[email protected]
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    -4317 hours ago

    This is stupid… I hate Trump, but if you’ve ever been to a rally like this you know that no one sits behind the cameras… You know, because they usually want to actually see the stage

    • @Passerby6497
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      3817 hours ago

      TIL that all of the arena is behind cameras, which is why there are empty sections around the entire arena.

      • @JamesTBagg
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        14 hours ago

        Go rewatch the video, the rest of the stadium is pretty full, all the way to the nose-bleeds. I enjoy seeing his shrinking crowd sizes, and his fans walking out while he’s talking, but this article doesn’t have much meat on its sandwich.