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As members of Congress confront angry constituents at town halls nationwide, Republicans are increasingly invested in the idea that the dissatisfied Americans are insincere — and well compensated.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, for example, declared last week that he’d seen the videos from recent public events, but was confident that in “many” communities there were “paid protesters.” The Louisiana Republican, naturally, offered no evidence in support of his claim.
A few days later, Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas held a town hall meeting with constituents that went so badly, the Republican gave up and ended the event early. The senator soon after suggested that he believed his detractors were paid.
As NBC News reported, Donald Trump took a related message to his social media platform.
“Paid ‘troublemakers’ are attending Republican Town Hall Meetings. It is all part of the game for the Democrats, but just like our big LANDSLIDE ELECTION, it’s not going to work for them!” Trump said on Truth Social.
Putting aside the inconvenient fact that the president did not, in reality, win by a “landslide” — he didn't even reach 50% of the popular vote — Trump’s rhetoric might sound familiar. There’s a good reason for that.
As regular readers might recall, it was nearly nine years ago when Trump’s 2016 candidacy inspired protests, at which point he assumed that the people involved couldn’t possibly be sincere in their dislike of him. They were, he said at the time, “paid agitators.”
After he prevailed on Election Day 2016, there was related anti-Trump activism. Those involved, he said in November 2016, were “paid protesters.” Months later, after his inauguration, the activism continued. Trump assured the public once more that these Americans deserved to be ignored — because, he assumed, they were “paid protesters.”
The following year, Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination inspired another round of progressive activism. The protesters, Trump insisted, were “paid professionals.”
For now, let’s not dwell on the fact that Russia’s Vladimir Putin has embraced the same tactic. Let’s instead consider the unavoidable bottom line: For Trump and too many in his party, Americans who disagree with them are effectively an impossibility that can only be explained through corrupt schemes and illicit payments.
Indeed, it’s hardly a stretch to draw a straight line from “paid protesters” rhetoric to election denialism: Americans who side with Trump and Republicans are real, while Americans who disagree must necessarily be seen as inauthentic.
For his part, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries saw the president’s missive and responded by way of Bluesky. “We don’t need paid protestors,” the New York Democrat wrote. “The American people are with us.”
This post updates our related earlier coverage.