OOPS: More Evidence That Those ‘Grassroots’ Lefty Protests Are Mostly Astroturf

Hating Trump is a lucrative business these days, especially for companies who are paid to organize big groups to look like authentic protesters.

And with another reason to rage at the Trump Team, we’ve got another batch cooked up and ready to go. Like clockwork.

Have you noticed how quickly the narrative pivots from yesterday’s tired outrage to the fresh new agitprop of tomorrow? They all happen to own the right flags to wave for the occasion — be it social cause or national symbol. There are often glossy, printed signs with the latest slogans.

And some of them seem to flit from protest to protest the way regular people might follow a favorite band, or the ‘Frontrow Joes’ show up at Trump Rallies. Some reporters have spotted recurring faces across multiple states, and the arrest records at some of the violent rallies just ‘happen’ to have people flying in from all the most radical political hotbeds in America.

That brings us to the Outrage Du Jour. Trump cracking down on DC Crime by exercising a clause that is explicitly named in the law that lets the Executive Branch re-take control over policing of the District of Columbia, whose unique status among all other US cities was explicitly spelled out in the Constitution..

“Right now, D.C. inquiries are up roughly 400% compared to the same period in 2024,” Crowds on Demand CEO Adam Swart told Fox News Digital, adding that the time period he is referencing is May to July 2024.

The company always sees a spike in requests during what Swart calls “high-stakes political moments.”
[…] Swart said the “vast majority” of people at political or advocacy events in D.C. are in some way paid.

“Most people don’t know this, but many protesters are literally on the payroll – Capitol Hill staffers from both parties are often expected to show up at rallies and protests on their own time,” he said. “So yes, most attendees are being paid or are there because it’s part of their job. That doesn’t mean they don’t support the cause – but it does mean these crowds aren’t as ‘organic’ as they appear on TV.” —FoxNews

Not as organic as they appear on TV? Oh, you don’t say? We never would have guessed it, what with those hundred-foot-long flags carried by marchers supporting the interests of this or that far-flung country.

Ukraine Flags gave way to Palestinian flags, gave way to social issue flags, gave way to ‘no kings’ and anti-ICE protests. Even the bombing of Iran spurred a brief support of pro-Iranian protests that quickly melted away, trading their flags for whichever one they are waving today.

There is one reason and one reason only that people do these protests: to create ‘social proof’.

They want to world to believe that many people are not just concerned about this issue, but sufficiently agitated about it as to take to the streets, ideally, with enough critical mass to create a bandwagon effect so that an issue nobody cared about a week ago suddenly becomes a passionate belief.

It makes no difference whether they genuinely hold that belief, or merely succumb to social pressure enough that they parrot that belief — the goal is accomplished and the ‘mind virus’, as some have called it, has been passed to a new host, where the circle of social proof expands and the cycle repeats itself.

It also explains why, once a movement becomes old and unfashionable, or becomes discredited through scandal (looking at you BLM) the public can quietly drop it and look for the next fashionable bandwagon. Which fits neatly with Rule 7 of Alinksy’s rules for radicals, ‘A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag’

Flags or other symbols in social media handles or bios are a common example of this bandwagon… as are bumper stickers.

Because this is an expensive way to leverage ‘social proof’, there is one thing and one thing only that will bring an end to the tactic of massive hired crowds.

People will stop paying for them when they stop being effective. That works in both directions — effective as a bandwagon to gather latent crowd energy they can focus on a cause, or as pressure bought to bear to twist the arm of legislators to support causes they might not normally endorse.

PREDICTION: As NGO money dries up, watch for a pivot in how these crowds are deployed. There won’t be nearly as much slush-fund money to throw at instant outrage machines, so they will have to pick their battles more carefully, either with smaller groups or by hitting fewer locations.

Unless of course, they can funnel foreign dollars into crowd funding. Which, honestly, is a far more insidious method of ‘foreigners rigging an election’ than anything the Russiagate Conspirators ever accused Trump of doing.