The protests had shrunk to about 100 people before the feds came. That group was getting smaller and smaller and easier and easier for the locals to deal with. As soon as the feds arrived and started throwing people that were far from the courthouse in unmarked vehicles the protests immediately swelled to several thousand.
All the feds accomplished was making a bad situation worse. It continues to be bad now that they have left, but unless Trump's mission was to inflame the situation, it failed.
Not sure why that concept is impossible to grasp.
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