How A 51-Year-Old Grandmother And Thousands Of Teens Used TikTok To Derail A Trump Rally & Maybe Save Lives

I knew there was something fishy when Donald Trump campaign manager Brad Pascale tweeted last Monday “Over 1M ticket requests for the @realDonaldTrump #MAGA Rally in Tulsa on Saturday.” That’s more than twice the population of Tulsa.

Still, like most observers, I fully expected Trump to fill up the 19,000 indoor arena along with the outdoor overflow area for those that couldn’t get in. But the Tulsa Fire Department confirmed to Forbes Sunday night that just under 6,200 people attended the rally and the outdoor rally was cancelled after nearly no-one showed up.

The low turnout may have saved lives

All politics aside, that low turn-out is very good news, because it means that it’s likely that fewer people will have been infected by COVID-19 from the indoor rally and the cancelled outdoor overflow rally that was expected to attract tens of thousands of people standing shoulder to shoulder.

We may never know how many of those roughly 6,200 people were infected, but — from TV shots and press reports, most of them weren’t wearing masks. I don’t just worry about the people in the room, but the people they infect and those infected by the ones they infect, including people likely to have a severe or fatal outcome. As many Tulsa and national public health officials said ahead of the rally, it was a very dangerous event that could have (and might still) be a “superspreader” that could lead to the death of a number of people.

Role of TikTok and K-pop fans

On June 11th, the Trump campaign tweeted “Register for your FREE TICKETS on the ‘Trump 2020’ App or visit the link below.” Fans of K-pop, a popular Korean music genre, took the campaign up on its offer and ordered tickets, even though they had no intention to attend the rally.

Then Mary Jo Laupp, a 51 year old grandmother from Iowa posted a video on TikTok, urging her mostly young viewers to “Google two phrases, ‘Juneteenth’ and ‘Black Wall Street,’” and suggested they register for two free tickets to the rally. Her TikTok post went viral and inspired young people on the service to request hundreds of thousands of tickets.

The Verge reported that this wasn’t the first time K-pop fans rained on the parade of Trump supporters. Earlier this month, fans of the music genre flooded hashtags like #MAGA and #BlueLivesMatter with posts “full of K-pop fancams and memes that mock these causes.”

Other factors

To be fair, there were other factors at play that might have contributed to the low turnout. Despite the President’s downplaying of the COVID-19 risk, the majority of Americans from both parties say they are taking it seriously, especially given recent reports of an uptick in cases, including in Tulsa. I’m sure there were Trump supporters who stayed away to avoid being infected. Trump Trump campaign manager Brad Pascale claimed that protestors were blocking the doors, but reporters on the scene said that didn’t occur. It’s hard to know whether the lack of attendees could also be a signal of softening of enthusiasm from Trump’s base, though there clearly plenty of people who still adore the President.

Power of social media and passion of youth

It’s long been known that social media can have a huge impact on politics. That’s why Russia tasked a state-run agency to flood social media with posts and ads to get Donald Trump elected. It’s also why the Trump campaign spends millions on social media advertising and why the President himself seemingly spends an enormous amount of time tweeting.

But no matter how much the Russians spend or how how many followers Trump accumulates, they can’t begin to match the collective power of young people for whom social media is integrated into their lives.

The timing also worked against Trump and in favor of this viral campaign. While young people, in general, have long expressed progressive views, the murder of George Floyd and other black men and women and the way the Trump administration has responded, has unleashed a passion that we haven’t seen since the 1960s, when I was a young anti-Vietnam war activist.

Lessons from the anti-Vietnam war movement

It will be interesting to see what comes next and what impact social media has on the November election. Trolling a single Trump rally has been impactful, but it’s just one event that will soon fade from the news cycle. The question I have is whether young people (as well as middle-aged grandmas) can sustain these efforts to have a lasting impact.

The demonstrations of the 1960s (and 70s) were not singular events. They were frequent and they were accompanied by thousands of meetings, teach-ins, planning sessions and conversations in high school and colleges around the country for a period of nearly a decade until the war finally ended in 1975. They were also part of a larger movement for civil rights, women’s rights and social justice.

Another motivating factor of the Vietnam war era was the draft which, literally, threatened the lives of young men. We don’t have a draft today, but many young Black men and the people who love them do feel threatened and — because of COVID-19, just about everyone has at least some reason to fear that their life or the life or a loved-one could be at risk.

It will be interesting to see what happens going forward.

Disclosure: Larry Magid is CEO of ConnectSafely.org, an internet safety organization that receives financial support from TikTok and other tech companies.

This story was updated at 12:55 PM (ET) Monday to add section on “Other factors.”

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