At the risk of offending folks who may think they sympathize with this week’s campus campers and their silly protest tents, hummus s’mores, and schwarma roasts, I would like to offer an alternative working hypothesis. To set the table, allow me to show you just how far we’ve come: you can now rent protestors right on the Internet. Behold “Crowds on Demand:”
It’s not bad work, if you can get it. How else do you expect kids with degrees in feminist themes in filmmaking to pay off their student loans? The team at Crowds on Demand promises all you need is money and a goal, and they’re ready to meet all your astroturf needs. They’ll even provide the ideas:
Crowds on Demand “delivers phenomenal experiences” including “even the most logistically challenging events.” Logistically challenging events? You mean, like CHAZ-style tent cities-on-the-green?
I’m not saying this was procured by Crowds on Demand. Who knows? The point is, if you can now one-click protests on the Internet, just imagine the kinds of resources to which the intelligence agencies and the political parties have access.
My best guess would be businesses like Crowds On Demand were formed by veterans of shady government-adjacent enterprises doing the exact same thing.
And don’t forget our foreign enemies.
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Multiplier! More lawfare against conservatives and their lawyers in Arizona; CHAZ summer camping season opens on U.S. college campuses; NPR boss' shady resume signals trouble; Biden gaffes; more.
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This has been going on since the Ferguson Protests when news leaked people had been paid to showed up, were waiting on their checks weeks later
Ferguson 'Protesters' Are Now Protesting That They Didn't Get Paid
In December, IBD noted that most of the protesters getting arrested weren't local residents but people bussed in from groups like the New Black Panthers, the U.S. Human Rights Network and the ANSWER Coalition.
Later, after the riots in Baltimore erupted, Fox News reported that as many as 50 social media accounts were tied to both those and the Ferguson protests, suggesting the presence of "professional protesters."
Now some of the "protesters" themselves are complaining that they never got paid.
In mid-May, Millennial Activists United organized a sit-in at the Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment offices. The reason: MORE owed the protesters money.
The group complained that MORE "created a joint account in which national donors from all over the world have donated over $150,000 to sustain the movement," but "the poor black people of this movement ... have seen little to none of that money."
Paid protesters? They’re real — and a Beverly Hills firm that hires them stands accused of extortion in a lawsuit
The company has hired actors to lobby the New Orleans City Council on behalf of a power plant operator, protest a Masons convention in San Francisco and act like supportive fans and paparazzi at an L.A. conference for life coaches.
But according to a lawsuit filed by a Czech investor, Crowds on Demand also takes on more sordid assignments. Zdenek Bakala claims the firm has been used to run an extortion campaign against him.
Bakala has accused Prague investment manager Pavol Krupa of hiring Crowds on Demand to pay protesters to march near his home in Hilton Head, S.C., and to call and send emails to the Aspen Institute and Dartmouth College, where Bakala serves on advisory boards, urging them to cut ties to him. Bakala alleges that Krupa has threatened to continue and expand the campaign unless Bakala pays him $23 million.
