TOPLINE
Some anti-Trump organizers on TikTok are again planning to register for tickets at President Trump’s Saturday rally in New Hampshire with no plans to attend in an attempt to keep seats empty, repeating a social media strategy that has been speculated as a reason for an unexpectedly low turnout at the president’s June rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The upper section of the arena is seen partially empty as US President Donald Trump speaks during a ... [+]
KEY FACTS
Calls to sabotage the rally began circulating Monday on the social media app after user @vkusnothanks posted a video asking the “Top 5 hottest tiktokers” to spread a message about registering for Trump’s upcoming rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
“The tickets are still free same as it was in Tulsa, and you can reserve two at a time,” the video says, calling on Gen Z to “signal boost” and “make the rally just as, if not more scarce than the one in Oklahoma.”
The video quickly gained 300,000 likes and tens of thousands of comments from other users saying they reserved tickets with jokes like “It’s my oven’s birthday so I’m not going to be able to make it” and “Me & my lil bro just reserved 4 seats but we gotta help my grandma sweep the grass that day I forgot.”
A number of other users posted videos walking through how to reserve the tickets and calling on others to do the same.
This movement closely resembles a coordinated effort by TikTok users in the run-up to Trump’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where just 6,200 of the BOK center’s 19,200 seats were filled despite announcements ahead of time that the campaign had received more than a million ticket requests.
Seating at the Tulsa rally was first come, first serve, so no one was denied seats because of the phony registrations, but TikTokers and K-Pop fans may account for the inflated reservation numbers that led the Trump campaign to believe turnout would be so high they would need overflow seating (which they didn’t).
Key Background
After the June 20 Tulsa rally, Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale rejected the idea that TikTokers had been responsible for low attendance numbers, telling CNN: "Leftists and online trolls doing a victory lap, thinking they somehow impacted rally attendance, don't know what they're talking about or how our rallies work." Parscale said registering for a rally means you’ve RSVPed with a cell phone number and that the campaign constantly weeds out “bogus numbers,” adding: “These phony ticket requests never factor into our thinking.” Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said after the event that protesters had stopped supporters from entering the rally, which is why seats remained unfilled, an account rebuked by reporters on the scene.
chief critic
“Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID,” wrote Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) on Twitter in response to comments from Parscale.
Quick Tangent
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday that the U.S. is considering a ban on Chinese social media apps, including TikTok, which has around 30 million users. TikTok recently pulled its app from Hong Kong over a new national security law, a week after it was banned in India following clashes at the India-China border.
Further Reading
“Turnout At Trump’s Tulsa Rally Was Just Under 6,200–A Fraction Of The Venue’s 19,200 Capacity” (Forbes)
“TikTok Teens and K-Pop Stans Say They Sank Trump Rally” (The New York Times)
“Pompeo says the U.S. is ‘certainly looking at’ banning TikTok and other Chinese apps” (The Washington Post)
