Q&A of the Day – Demographics of the No Kings Protesters
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
Social: @brianmuddradio
iHeartRadio: Use the Talkback feature – the microphone button on our station page in the iHeart app.
Today’s entry: Submitted via Talkback: Hey Brian, Jeremy here. So I was listening and I heard that the turnout for the early bird special protest on what was it Saturday, Sunday was mostly an older crowd, and I guess their rationale for that was apathy in the youth. Yeah, I don't think it's apathy. What are your thoughts?
Bottom Line: Kudos for the creativity in your description of Saturday’s Marxist-organized ‘No Kings’ protests. I did get a laugh out of it (although in full disclosure, as someone who’s in bed by 8, I’ve been known to be an early birder myself). Much has been made out of the size of the protests on Saturday in addition to the demographics of the protests. It’s been well documented that protests across the country were disproportionally attended by older white women. As you noted, this led to some to suggest that there was apathy among younger adults, but perhaps it wasn’t a case of apathy that largely kept younger people away. First let’s dive into who actually did show up at protests across the country.
Estimates for the total number of protesters has been all over the map with totals of seven million being widely reported. The most comprehensive analysis for city-by-city state-by-state participation available was provided by the Strength in Numbers website where a spreadsheet was created for every protest site with at least two people attending a protest. There were 1,245 locations where that was the case.
The actual number of protesters within the United States wasn’t anywhere close to the 7 million reported. In fact, it was about half that number. Factoring in every “protest” on Saturday with at least two people attending (and btw, there were two locations where literally only two people showed up to protest) the grand total nationally was 3,815,160 protesters. Or to put it another way, 1.28% of the population. Or to put it another way, about a third of the stated goal of 3.5% of the population by organizers. Not only were the protests wildly hyped and promoted by sympathetic media outlets prior to the protests, but the reporting on the actual protests has also been egregiously exaggerated. For example, here’s a Newsweek story published at noon yesterday: At least 2,700 events took place simultaneously in cities, towns and suburbs in every U.S. state on Saturday, decrying President Donald Trump’s policies and agenda. Organizers estimated that nearly 7 million people took to the streets nationwide, with events in cities including New York, Boston and Chicago topping 100,000 attendees. That story clearly overstates both the number of sites where people showed and total protesters by double the actual number.
As for the demographics of protesters, I decided to put AI resources to work. Using multiple AI tools, I asked for a scan of social media postings from the protests across the country to create an estimate of attendees. Here’s the summation of what I received:
- Predominantly older (average base protestors 55-70+)
- Mostly women
- Mostly white (90%-98%)
And here’s the kicker. When I asked for the closest historical comp to what transpired on Saturday...what protest do you think came up? The 2017 “Women’s March”. Yes, the “march” which featured Ashley Judd’s “Nasty Woman” speech. So, in other words, your ‘No King’s’ protesters today are mostly your ‘Nasty Women’ of 2017. Incidentally, much of the financial backing is the same for both so it’s of little surprise. Effectively we’re talking about your Gloria Steinem radicalized Hippe's from the 60’s. So, about that...
President Trump won last year’s election with the most diverse coalition of voters by any winning President since JFK in 1960. That’s true in age and ethnicity, but to a lesser extent gender. While men of all socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds have been trending towards the right in recent years, the two groups President Trump performed worst with last year, and continues to through approval polls this year, are younger and older women.
President Trump currently has net positive approval ratings with men; however, his approval rating is only at 34% with women. That includes only 1% approval for white women who are Democrats. So, what we’re mostly seeing is the evolution of abortion protesters of the 60’s and 70’s into the Nasty Women of today. That’s the base of the grossly overstated, and highly funded and orchestrated ‘No Kings’ nonsense these days.