Thousands rally for Trump, believing he won the election

Fervent supporters of President Donald Trump rallied in Washington on Saturday behind his spurious claim of a stolen election and swarmed his motorcade when he detoured for a drive-by on his way to avoid it of town.

“I just want to keep up his spirits and tell him we support him,” one loyalist, Anthony Whittaker of Winchester, Virginia, said from outside the Supreme Court, where thousands assembled after a march along Pennsylvania Avenue from Freedom Plaza, near the White House.

A week following the presidential race was needed Democrat Joe Biden, their fury at the chance of a transfer of executive power showed no signs of abating, going for a cue from a president unrelenting in asserting he won an election he actually lost.

Trump persists even though a broad coalition of top government and industry officials has declared that the Nov. 3 voting and the next count unfolded smoothly without more than the most common minor hiccups - “the soundest in American history,” they said, repudiating his efforts to undermine the integrity of the contest.

The crowd was starting to gather in the morning when cheers rang out as Trump's limousine neared Freedom Plaza on his way to a golf outing in Sterling, Virginia. People lined both sides of the road. Some stood simply a few feet from Trump’s vehicle; others showed their enthusiasm by running together with the caravan.

They chanted “USA, USA” and “four more years,” and several carried American flags and signs to show their displeasure with the vote tally.

Among the speakers was a Georgia Republican newly elected to the U.S. House. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has expressed racist views and support for QAnon conspiracy theories, urged persons to march peacefully toward the Supreme Court.

The marchers included members of the Proud Boys, a neo-fascist group known for street brawling with ideological opponents at political rallies.

The demonstration was largely peaceful, with some tension along the margins as counterdemonstrators heckled the marchers with chants of “You lost!”

The “Million MAGA March” was heavily promoted on social media, raising concerns that it might spark conflict with anti-Trump demonstrators, who've gathered near the White House in Black Lives Matter Plaza for weeks.

In preparation, police closed off wide swaths of downtown, where many stores and offices have been boarded up since Election Day. Chris Rodriguez, director of the city’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, said the authorities were experienced at keeping the peace.

The problems that Trump’s campaign and its allies have pointed to are typical in every election: issues with signatures, secrecy envelopes and postal marks on mail-in ballots, plus the potential for a tiny number of ballots miscast or lost. With Biden leading Trump by wide margins in key battleground states, none of these issues would have any impact on the results of the election.

Trump’s campaign in addition has filed legal challenges complaining that their poll watchers were not able to scrutinize the voting process. A lot of those challenges have already been tossed out by judges, some within hours of their filing.

A former administration official, Sebastian Gorka, whipped up the crowd by the Supreme Court by saying, “We are able to win because he did win.” But, he added, “It's going to be tough.”