Summary
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) responded to Elon Musk’s conspiracy theory that Democrats move the same group of paid protesters to different events.
Right-wing influencer Mario Nawfal claimed GPS data showed only 20,000 attendees—less than the reported 34,000—at recent rallies and suggested most had attended multiple past protests.
Musk amplified this claim, alleging the use of paid protesters.
Ocasio-Cortez dismissed Musk’s claim with “Someone’s butthurt,” adding he should find “a new, more interesting conspiracy theory to peddle.”
It’s interesting that this trope about bussed or paid protesters gets repeated so often. In Germany, the AfD claimed that protesters were bussed and got paid, even with tax money. It’s like they share talking points.
All of the far right movements use the same talking points now, they just tailor them for local audiences. The GOP started spreading its filth worldwide decades ago. None of this is an accident.
It’s a pattern that was primarily established when the Reagan Administration (and Don Regan, the CEO of Merrill Lynch) took over in the 1980s. Most of the ideas come from Lee Atwater who was an absolutely horrendous human being.
They have been running almost exactly the same playbook since then.
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Because for the right, the concept of people coming together as a grassroots movement and setting aside some political differences to unite as a group, was unheard of until Tea Party/MAGA.
It’s an implicit admission - how else could ‘those radical lefties/gays/immigrants/etc’ get these crowd sizes except by astroturfing like the right has to?
Fun fact back in I want to say 2008 there was a big old anti-gay protest thing that filled up a stadium here in California, turned out a solid chunk of attendees were bussed in by the Mormon fucken church. Sadly this fact wasn’t dug up particularly well until after prop 8(?) which banned gay marriage, luckily I think we have since voted it out. Also yes it did swing public opinion that badly, luckily I think it reaffirmed our weird xenophobia here in California so I don’t think it’d work again.
In countries that are ostensibly democracies to justify your actions you have to claim you have majority support. Any crowd of people is a threat to that perception, so it makes sense (in a shitty way) that we see the “paid protestors” attack so often.