But it didn't. Trump had enormous numbers, with people being turned away because they tightened security so much that there were very long lines to go through the checkpoints. FReepers reported on here that they had to turn away from the long security line after awhile and instead went down the street to secure a spot for the parade.
Despite the one photo CNN kept broadcasting for hours showing a sparse crowd, it it was a headfake, taken very early in the morning as people first arrived, and shown over and over with no update.
I and friends arrived three hours early with tickets for the Inauguration Ceremony and it was already packed. We had to stand in one of the roped-off Capitol lawn areas on one side because all the prime center area with folding chairs on the lawn (and on the Avenue) was already over capacity.
The crowd was diverse—blacks, whites, Asians, even Catholic priests.
The media-abetted hysteria over "violent" Trump supporters requiring tightened security, the resulting security delays, the headfake photo, the repeated tropes that there weren't many people there—all part of Hillary / Soros / Obama's "resistance" already in place.
One other little-known attendance-thwarting technique: many of Trump's political appointees set to begin work for his administration were not able to attend the ceremony because the Cabinet Secretary or bureaucrat above them required them to report to their place of work to be sworn in at noon—the same time as the Inauguration.
Some of my favorite parts of the ceremony aside from Trump's wonderful speech were when the customary speech by a member of the opposition party, in this case Chuck Schumer, was met with barely suppressed groans, which the broadcasters muffled; the jumbotrons on either side of the balcony also scanned the butthurt facial expressions of the cabal arrayed behind Trump as he spoke (very entertaining); and when Trump concluded with "make America great again", the crowd absolutely roard his catchphrase along with him.
