Paid protesters and other highly improbable things

It’s easy to laugh at the thought of significant numbers of “paid protesters”. After all, there are several practical hurdles to overcome.

1. Start with the recruiting problem. How do you get the word out without anyone knowing? You can’t achieve newsworthy numbers with shadowy figures handing out bills in alleyways.
2. How much do you pay them? Assume most of them need to park a car somewhere, and they won’t come for less than it costs to park. And buy dinner. And/or maybe stay in a hotel. In most urban areas that comes to about $200 minimum and your protesters would like to be compensated for their time. So… about $300 each?
3. Now (using the women’s march as an example) multiply that figure times, say, twenty thousand per newsworthy location. A half-million in Washington. So, a hundred-fifty million bucks just in our nation’s capital, and just for that one march. George Soros is going to get tired of writing checks. Or he’ll need a very large staff to do it. Or to distribute a large amount of cash through a lot of intermediaries, all without anyone knowing.
4. Of course, that money needs to be disbursed somehow. So you need an organization to make it flow. Of course, those quantities require bank reporting, and most people would have to declare it on their income taxes. H.R. Block tax people would know about it. It just doesn’t scale, let alone being able to hide it.

There are many other problems of course. So when you ask a conservative friend if they believe that all those protesters are paid by somebody, they’ll say; “Of course not! Only a fool would believe that story.”

But here’s the problem: they’re supporting the guy who does believe it. Or at least, says it with a straight face, right after saying there were 3 million illegal voters, or that he won the EC in a landslide, or that he knows more about ISIS than the US intelligence. They’re looking at a guy who tells obvious whoppers, in charge of the world’s largest economy and nuclear arsenal, and… what? That doesn’t bother them? Is there nothing that would make them drop anchor and start checking their ethical maps?

NOTES:

• Discuss this post On Facebook
• The “outside agitators” and “paid protesters” dodge is as old as the hills anyway. It’s damn impractical to get a good protest going that way. Of course paid arson or violence, to discredit protesters, is much easier because only a tiny fraction of the number of people are involved.
• Thousands of people bussed into New Hampshire to vote illegally and no one notices? Sure, why not.