To put things into a little perspective - and to get the full flavor of just how delusional the Far Right has become - I thought it might be instructive to consider just how large a group 30 million people really is. For that's the high-end number of Tea Party "patriots" the organizers of Operation American Spring were predicting would descend on Washington D.C. to demand the resignation of President Obama and other major elected figures in the capital.
Here goes:
In 2012, the population of New York City was estimated to be around 8.34 million people. If 30 million people had indeed attended the rally in D.C., that would have been the equivalent of packing nearly FOUR New York Cities onto the National Mall.
The population of the entire state of California is about 38 million. Did the organizers honestly believe that 80% of the population of CA would show up for their rally? Really?
The record-setting crowd at the 2009 inauguration of President Obama was estimated to be about 1.8 million shivering souls. We all remember the pictures from that event, showing people standing shoulder-to-shoulder for as far back as the eye could see. Yet, the OAS people were expecting 15 times that number to show up for their little dress-up affair?!
And one doesn't even want to think of the logistical nightmare that such a scenario would result in. Imagine 30 million Americans uprooting themselves on a single day and heading into a space the size of D.C. I doubt our system of transportation could accommodate such a mass migration.
I know that people often have trouble conceptualizing large numbers, but, honestly, believing that 30 million people would show up to ANYTHING, let alone a rally of malcontents with too much time on their hands, goes from the delusional to the downright pathological.