For those of you with longer memories than, say, a sparrow — unusual in our news cycle-focused media, but a condition more prevalent in the rest of the world — you may perhaps remember the crowing about crowds the left engaged in after now-former Vice President Kamala Harris became the heir apparent to the Democratic nomination.
“It’s really hard to overstate just how different the environment is for Democrats now,” The New York Times’ Maya King proclaimed from a “boisterous rally” for Harris in Atlanta, where Kamala was joined by rappers Megan Thee Stallion and Quavo of Migos.
“It’s the clearest illustration yet of just how different the Democratic presidential campaign is under Harris — and how much she’s energizing a part of the Democratic coalition that had been checked out,” King fawned.
Over and over again, the same tired argument: Look at the energy! The vibes! The lines!
Hundreds of Kamala Harris supporters are standing in line outside the McHale Center at Wilkes university for her rally this evening.
Harris won’t be speaking until 7pm. pic.twitter.com/XfxYuodK28
— SeanKitchen.bsky.social (@pennslinger) September 13, 2024
the queue for @KamalaHarris’ rally in Philly might be the longest line I’ve ever seen. runs all the way down Franklin Pwky to Logan Square, then wraps all the way back around and up the hill
was at the Olympics this summer and didn’t see lines like this pic.twitter.com/PfsWhTirri
— Chris Bolman 🔆 (@ChrisBolman) November 4, 2024
This woman lost every swing state and the popular vote. How? She had vibes. She had crowds. She had energy. Or so it looked that way, anyhow.
Are the anti-Trump protests full of professional protesters, not grassroots voters?
For those of you who do have the attention span of sparrows, meanwhile, you may have heard that there were huge, giant, massive protests in American cities against President Donald Trump and Department of Government Efficiency chair Elon Musk this past weekend:
HAPPENING NOW: A MASSIVE protest is taking place in downtown Chicago for the “Hands Off!” movement against Elon Musk and Donald Trump pic.twitter.com/NVEiTFi8Iy
— Marco Foster (@MarcoFoster_) April 5, 2025
And this comes after Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez drew huge crowds to their “Fighting Oligarchy” rallies:
The video speaks for itself.
34,000 people out in Denver. Largest political rally there since 2008.
The message is clear:
NO to authoritarianism. NO to oligarchy. NO to Trumpism.
We are ready to fight back.
Now it’s on to Tucson. pic.twitter.com/LICIDzrWTZ
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) March 22, 2025
Such energy! Such vibes! Such huge crowds! I’m halfway shocked that Maya King isn’t out there saying how “it’s really hard to overstate just how different the environment is for Democrats now.”
If you’re wondering why vibes don’t equal votes, however, you may want to pay attention to entrepreneur and data expert Tony Seruga. He’s been taking a look at these crowds via GPS data — and, surprise surprise, it looks like they’ve been inflating things.
Take the “MASSIVE protest” in downtown Chicago, for instance, that took place this weekend. According to Seruga, while organizers claimed 30,000 people, GPS only detected 7,498 mobile devices in the area.
What’s more, when Seruga broke that number down, it looked a lot worse. He used demographic data — “age, gender, income, education level,” that sort of thing — and psychographic data, which “dives deeper into people’s lifestyles, values, attitudes, interests, personality traits, social class, activities, and how they make purchasing decisions.”
“For more insight into what data we also look at in addition to GPS location data would be demographic and psychographic data using over 6,000 different databases, i.e., like the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Pew Research Center, market research firms like YouGov, Experian, specialized tools like ESRI’s Tapestry Segmentation, consumer surveys, social media platforms like 𝕏, Facebook, Linkedin,” he added in a Saturday evening post to X.
“Additionally, by cross pollinating each device with other devices regularly within close proximity to the target device we are able to build a detailed profile for each target,” he said, adding that he had identified six groups that were behind driving turnout to these events: “Disruption Project, Rise & Resist, Indivisible Project, Troublemakers, the Democratic Socialists of America and the Muslim Brotherhood.”
“We have also identified 11 additional groups paying for protests, demonstrations and riots, many are linked to foreign bad actors in countries funding terrorism,” he alleged.
As for those detected via GPS, 92 percent were identified “having attended 5 or more Kamala Harris rallies, antifa/blm, pro-Hamas, [or] pro-Palestinian protests.”
GPS—7,498 mobile devices.
Organizers are claiming 30,000. CBS states a vague ‘thousands’.
92% having attended 5 or more Kamala Harris rallies, antifa/blm, pro-Hamas, pro-Palestinian protests.
For more insight into what data we also look at in addition to GPS location data… https://t.co/DZIjtO2l2e
— Tony Seruga (@TonySeruga) April 6, 2025
Now, it’s worth noting that we don’t have access to his dataset, but it’s also worth noting that this isn’t the first time he’s seen inflated turnout numbers and signs that this wasn’t exactly grassroots enthusiasm. Guess where else he found it?
GPS—Here we go again, there were 20,189 devices. Still a large crowd but not even close to the 30,000 quoted in Denver newspapers nor the 34,000 quoted by Bernie Sanders and AOC.
84% of the devices present had attended 9 or more Kamala Harris rallies, antifa/blm, pro-Hamas,… https://t.co/zQuvc0ATx5
— Tony Seruga (@TonySeruga) March 23, 2025
Perhaps not exactly hard, considering that I mentioned it earlier, but it’s almost the exact same breakdown — which means, essentially, these protests are almost entirely fake.
Political theater happens all the time, of course, and it happens on both sides of the aisle. Those who think it doesn’t are blind or dumb. The fact that certain things are theatrical doesn’t entirely diminish their impact.
However, to mistake the constant, massive application of political theater as being impactful as a real movement is to blindly mistake astroturf for grass. The media, who willfully remain sparrow-brained about how this all ends, will doubtlessly give these crowds outsized attention in the days and weeks to come. All others who don’t have the professional necessity of forgetting should view all of this with due suspicion, especially given the actual numbers and profile Seruga says he’s managed to obtain.
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