Here’s an aerial shot of the Boston April 15th rally:

Maybe 1,000 people? You be the judge. But certainly nowhere near the, 10,000 predicted by the organizers.
This was the first major national Tea Party protest, preceded by a Magic Bus tour from Searchlight Nevada to DC.
Libertarians are quick to point out that the movement actually has its roots as part of the Ron Paul campaign, but soon the Tea Parties become dominated by traditional Republican conservatives eager to escape blame for what the Republicans did under Bush to crash the economy. This had led to an increasing rift between libertarians and conservatives ever since. As a libertarian put it, “They laid artificial turf all over our fledgling grassroots movement.”
Either way, there were between 300-750 rallies held across the country to protest many things, particularly taxes and debt. The fact that 95% of Americans just received income tax cuts in the order of $300 billion as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the Stimulus Bill) was irrelevant to their furor.
The initial estimates came roaring across the internet: half a million attend Tea Parties! Only problem: it’s bullshit. Estimates of the crowd sizes vary, but Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com probably had the most cautious and balanced tally at ±311,000 nationwide. Even Americans for Tax Reform estimated that only 268,000 attended.
The nutty thing is, people who received the largest tax cut in recent history were protesting taxes!
I find myself hoping that the people who were duped by the rich Repugnicants into giving their hard-earned money to corporate fascists will begin to see clearly that their enemy is the jolly fat guy who rented your bus, printed your posters, and was a keynote speaker at your rally.