Sen. Bernie Sanders has claimed his “Fight Oligarchy” tour with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is drawing record crowds. But there’s just one problem—they packed full of professional protestors, according to detailed analysis of mobile-phone data.
Sanders posted a video on X of his rally in Denver, on Saturday.
“The video speaks for itself,” the Senator for Vermont wrote.
“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.”
Data analyst Tony Seruga had a different interpretation of the event and others on the “Fight Oligarchy” tour. He used an algorithm to analyze data from smartphones at the event, and came to the conclusion that the numbers were severely inflated and that many in attendance were professional protestors.
“Here we go again, there were 20,189 devices,” Seruga wrote on Twitter.
“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, pro-Palestinian protests, 31% had attended over 20.”
Seruga went on to say that further detailed analysis showed that many of these individuals were linked to five activist groups—Disruption Project, Rise & Resist, Indivisible Project, Troublemakers and the Democratic Socialists of America—all of which receive money from ActBlue and three of which are known to have received money from USAID.
Indivisible, which has also received millions of dollars from George Soros, have been in the news in recent days for their attempts to unseat Chuck Schumer as Senate Minority Leader.
Indivisible is now calling for Schumer to resign. It hosted an event on Saturday at which attendees will be encouraged to write “happy retirement” cards to the veteran politician.
The group’s co-executive director Ezra Levin announced the plan to oust Schumer shortly after the funding bill passed, with Schumer’s help: “Senator Schumer should step aside as leader. Every Democrat in the Senate should call for him to do so, and begin making plans for new leadership immediately.”
He added that the wrangling over the spending bill should have been used by Democrats as a “rare, precious point of leverage,” but “Schumer did the opposite. He led the charge to wave the white flag of surrender.”
The new campaign to oust Schumer drew pointed comment from a White House official, who spoke to The New York Post.
They said: “The Democrats will have an important question to answer in the coming days: Who actually leads their party — Schumer or Soros?”
Indivisible reckons it has 1,600 local chapters and employs at least 10 paid staffers. As The New York Post notes, it’s unclear to what extent they receive “orders” from their backers.
A representative of George Soros dismissed the claim that he leads the Democrat Part as “a daydream.”
Indivisible is also coordinating protests against Elon Musk and his work as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, including offering $200 payments to activists to take part in “Musk or us”-themed protests.
Protests against Musk have descended into violence in recent days, with attacks on Tesla dealerships, charging stations and vehicles.
On Thursday, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced federal charges against three individuals involved in this violence, labelling the protests “domestic terrorism.”
