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  • 2016-03-13 (xsd:date)
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  • Craigslist Ads Recruit Paid Protesters for Trump Rallies (en)
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  • On 11 March 2016, clashes between protesters and supporters in Chicago led to the cancellation of a scheduled rally for Donald Trump's presidential campaign, and shortly afterwards rumors appeared on social media holding that that the protesters were in fact paid operatives. For example, the unreliable web site All News Pipeline suggested that shadowy figures with big pockets (such as international business magnate George Soros) were trying to take Trump down using hired protesters: The claim wasn't the first time the name of George Soros was invoked in connection with the supposed secret funding of political unrest. A number of rumors pegged him as a moneyed agent provocateur behind a series of protests across the United States tied to the Black Lives Matter movement in 2014, and paid-to-protest claims came to the forefront again in early 2016 with a piece from the (also notoriously unreliable) InfoWars web site that cited a Craigslist post (of questionable legitimacy) seeking Troublemakers to engage in a vague satirical effort to disrupt Donald Trump's presidential campaign: Similarly, All News Pipeline linked to a job posting on the Chicago Craigslist site published by an outfit called Grassroots Campaigns seeking Canvass Directors as proof of the existence of an organized professional protest plot against Trump's White House bid: Other sources pointed to an early March 2016 Cleveland Craigslist job ad published by a similar organization, Working America, looking to hire field organizers as evidence that Trump opponents were actually recruiting paid rally disruptors: These ads were reproduced on multiple web sites as proof that organizations were trying to fabricate dissent at Trump rallies, all such claims hinging on nothing more than rank speculation that the ads themselves demonstrated the existence of an organized, professional, large-scale movement against Trump: Like Grassroots Campaigns, Working America is a recognized political organizing outfit and not a behind-the-scenes network aimed at disrupting Trump's political campaign via paid operatives. The claims about a conspiracy to disrupt the Trump campaign lacked any real proof that such a campaign was actually afoot, much less that any figures such George Soros or Republican rival Ted Cruz were behind those efforts. Nearly all these claims pointed to the above-cited Craigslist ads as evidence, but all of those ads simply sought door-to-door canvassers during an election year; none of themadvertised positions as paid agitators or protesters. (en)
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