The Protest Industry | Adam Swart
In this episode host Sean Rasmussen sits down with Adam Swart, founder and CEO of Crowds on Demand, to pull back the curtain on the protest industry. Adam shares his unique perspective from years of organizing advocacy campaigns—ranging from high-profile demonstrations to publicity stunts—and challenges the idea of what makes a protest truly “grassroots.” The conversation explores the ethics of paid activism, foreign influence campaigns, the pitfalls of violent protest, and the surprising realities behind movements like #DeleteFacebook and BLM. Adam also weighs in on how money shapes political action, the fine line between advocacy and astroturfing, and why he believes true free speech is under threat. It’s an unfiltered look at protest culture, media narratives, and the future of free expression.
Listen on your platform of choice: Spotify | Youtube | Apple Podcasts
Guest links:
- Website: https://crowdsondemand.com
- X/Twitter: https://x.com/ceoadamswart
The Illusion of Grassroots: Are Any Protests Truly Spontaneous?
In recent years, the authenticity of political protest has come under increasing scrutiny. Adam Swart, guest on the Viewpoints podcast and founder of Crowds on Demand—an advocacy firm best known for organizing protests and publicity stunts—challenges the very idea of “grassroots” activism. Swart contends, “There’s no such thing as grassroots protests… Tell me a grassroots movement and I’ll show you how it’s not grassroots.”
He argues that all activism, from local school board meetings to national movements, requires resources. Whether it’s stay-at-home moms with external financial support or paid participants, almost every protest contains an element of funding—direct or indirect. According to Swart, even the “soccer moms” organizing for better textbooks are being funded by circumstance: their ability to devote unpaid time is underwritten by family income or flexibility, in the same way that Crowds on Demand widens access by paying hourly workers to participate in causes they support.
How Paid Demonstrations Work: Democratizing Protest or Astroturfing?
Swart’s business model upends traditional notions of protest participation. His firm compensates participants, allowing the inclusion of people who might otherwise be excluded by rigid work schedules or economic constraints. On the podcast, Swart draws a historic parallel to pre-1911 British Parliament, when lawmakers were unpaid and limited to the wealthy elite. By paying protesters, he claims, the field opens to a broader socioeconomic mix—janitors, hotel staff, and hourly workers—making public demonstration more truly representative.
Critics often label such efforts as “astroturfing,” or the creation of fake grassroots movements to sway opinion. Swart pushes back, emphasizing that while the participants are paid, their passion for the issue is real. In campaigns like the “Delete Facebook” movement, Crowds on Demand employed a blend of visible stunts and traditional protest to raise issues of misuse of data and political algorithm manipulation—efforts Swart believes played a role in shifting public perceptions and company policy.
The Dark Side: Foreign Interference and Ethical Red Lines
Yet, the business of protest has its dangerous corners. Swart warns of foreign governments, such as China and Iran, meddling in U.S. (and Canadian) politics not just for policy outcomes but to create chaos for propaganda with audiences at home. He describes how these interventions, often through covert funding of violent demonstrations, are designed to produce sensational images for use on state media, warning citizens about the “chaos” of American democracy.
Ethically, Swart is candid about his own boundaries. He refuses campaigns that put participants at direct risk or that target marginalized individuals in bullying ways. “I like to go after the powerful,” he states, drawing the line at demonstrations that purposefully intimidate already vulnerable people—whether that’s protesting outside homes or small businesses based on political or religious identity.
What Makes Protest Effective in a Digital Age?
Despite the rise of social media activism, Swart argues there’s never been a more important time for in-person protest. Online petitions and hashtags are easy to ignore; physical crowds and visible dissent intrude upon daily life and attract media coverage in ways digital signals cannot. He emphasizes, however, that real success requires more than orchestrated numbers: “If you have a lot of money and you can pack a crowd…what does that do if the cause doesn’t resonate? Ultimately, it’s going to fizzle.”
The presence of a crowd is a catalyst, but the momentum and success of a cause depend on the genuine resonance of its mission. Even multi-million dollar campaigns can fail if the message falls flat—as in the case of Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential run.
Toward a More Honest Politics
Swart calls for a return to common sense and transparency, both in how protests are organized and in the media’s responsibility to report on them. He urges listeners—especially in countries like Canada, where free speech protections may be more limited compared to the U.S.—to demand robust rights for public expression and scrutiny about who is funding public activism.
Ultimately, the Viewpoints episode with Adam Swart unpacks a sobering truth: every protest is the tip of a complex iceberg of motivation, funding, and strategy. The next time you see a mobilized crowd—whether for a corporation, a political figure, or a grassroots cause—it’s worth asking: who’s behind it, and what do they stand to gain?
Transcript:
Adam Swart [00:00:00]:
There’s no such thing as grassroots protests. So when people are like, oh well, it should be grassroots, like what? Tell me a grassroots movement and I’ll show you how it’s not grassroots.
Sean Rasmussen [00:00:10]:
This is Viewpoints a deeper look into the ideas that shape our politics and culture. Break free from the orthodoxies of mainstream media and hear diverse perspectives from interesting people across the political spectrum. Adam Swart is the founder and CEO of Crowds on Demand, a US based protest and advocacy firm. For over a decade, he’s helped coordinate hundreds of high profile demonstrations in publicity sense, from grassroots movements to corporate influence campaigns. Adam has a unique insider view of how protests are funded, staged and used as political weapons, which is what we’ll be talking about today. Adam, welcome to Viewpoints.
Adam Swart [00:00:58]:
Sean, so good to be with you and your listeners.
Sean Rasmussen [00:01:02]:
You’ve been an outspoken critic of certain forms of orchestrated protest for a while now. Can you give listeners a brief overview of what you’re concerned about?
Adam Swart [00:01:12]:
Well, I think that protest is a fundamental American right. It’s a right that’s enshrined in our First Amendment, but it is also one of the bedrock principles of any free country. The idea of peaceful assembly in opposition or in favor of whatever cause you want, however offensive to me that is, that is a core value of mine. However, I think that when people use the word protest and then are violent and then block streets and then cause havoc and cause vandalism, that gives the idea of protest a bad name. And in my opinion, in countries, the free countries where peaceful expression is permitted, it is critical for people like myself who make a living off peaceful expression to condemn violent expression. There is no need to use violence or law breaking in countries where peaceful assembly is allowed.
Sean Rasmussen [00:02:15]:
Okay, and I guess you’ve seen a lot of this over the last like five to 10 years. Yes, in the U.S. yeah, that’s correct.
Adam Swart [00:02:23]:
We’ve seen, in the U.S. i mean, we’ve seen it in Europe for a long time. Violent protests, vandalism, burning cars has long been a staple of demonstrations in Europe in particular and abroad. But in the United States we’ve generally avoided that. But I think when there are certain examples in the United States where people have really taken to violence as a, in, as a form of protest, which I have to denounce. So whether it’s the BLM people, you know, in summer 2020, more recently, some of the demonstrations that are going on, it’s critical that we condemn the violence because I think, number one, because it’s a, it’s, there’s no justification for It. And number two, because I think authoritarian. Those with authoritarian tendencies want to put violent protests and peaceful protests together such that they can crack down on peaceful protests, too, and not condemn any act of doing that. So I think that it’s critical for protesters to not use violence, because I think that what then will happen is that authoritarians who don’t want any form of protest will. Will try to lob peaceful and violent together as a way to. To. To ban peaceful protest. And you saw that under the Biden administration against conservatives. You saw that on. You’re seeing it in the Trump administration against people that they don’t agree with. And I condemn it, whether it’s from the right or from the left.
Sean Rasmussen [00:04:03]:
So your company Crowds on Demand offers like, protest and advocacy services for clients. And I found that really interesting. I’ve never really thought about that side of politics before. Can you give listeners a brief overview of what your company does?
Adam Swart [00:04:15]:
Sure. Well, what we do is we create advocacy campaigns from the ground up. So whether that. Sometimes that includes creating an advocacy group, putting protesters probably best known for assembling protesters, there’s misinformation that these protesters are paid actors. They’re not. They’re people who are passionate about the cause, and we pay them to show up for expressing their views.
Speaker C [00:04:41]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:04:41]:
We also do publicity stunts, whether it’s a product launch or things like that. But we’re probably best known for advocacy campaigns, whether it’s trying to push for or against legislation, raise awareness about bad acts by, you know, corporations, or gain attention for a particular cause or movement or company.
Speaker D [00:05:04]:
So.
Adam Swart [00:05:04]:
So we do it. So the objective that a lot of people come to us is the same objective as you might have when you hire a PR firm or a lobbying firm. And we sometimes work in coordination with those type of firms. But in some cases, what we do is more effective because it is so outside the box. And in cases where the default is that you’re going to lose, it’s helpful sometimes to use outside the box approaches.
Sean Rasmussen [00:05:36]:
Okay, like, let’s use an example of a benign paid protest engagement.
Adam Swart [00:05:41]:
Sure. Well, I’ll. I’ll give you, like, a large scale one that we did that I think most people would probably agree with wherever they are at politically, is the Delete Facebook movement. So after 2016, there was this huge kind of uproar by both the right and the left against Facebook.
Speaker C [00:05:59]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:05:59]:
Because Facebook was essentially using the information, personal information, and using it to sell ads, to put pit people against each other. They did this in the United States. But in fact, even Worse, what they did abroad, like, they literally caused a genocide in Myanmar, you know, by stoking racial tensions using their algorithm.
Speaker C [00:06:23]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:06:23]:
And, you know, conservatives don’t like Facebook because, you know, Silicon Valley left. Liberals.
Speaker C [00:06:28]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:06:29]:
Liberals don’t like Facebook because there’s this perception it was used by the Trump campaign or Russia or whatever in order to win the 2016 election. Right. So that. That’s the backdrop of this campaign. So we were kind of brought in to raise awareness about how bad kind of Facebook really is, and we came up with this idea of hashtag, delete Facebook.
Speaker C [00:06:52]:
Right.
Speaker D [00:06:53]:
Okay.
Adam Swart [00:06:53]:
And throughout, you know, 17, 18, 19, there were these occasions where, you know, Mark Zuckerberg was doing an event or testifying before Congress or whatever, and we would have these people out there and sometimes in silly costumes and whatever, and do protests. And there was media involved and everything like that. But we had protests, you know, outside their headquarters, outside Congress, you know, in a lot of very visible locations. And actually, what that kind of contributed to doing is a lot of really negative press coverage about Facebook. And it, I think, had to do with two things. Number one, they changed their name. They call themselves Meta now.
Speaker C [00:07:33]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:07:34]:
They don’t call themselves Facebook. The Facebook name became so associated with division and evil that they actually don’t even want to be associated with that name. Number two, they’ve actually instituted policies disfavoring political ads.
Speaker C [00:07:49]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:07:50]:
So they’ve now since are focused more on, like, commercial ads rather than political ads. Now, I’m not in any way endorsing anything about that company. I still think it’s. It’s evil, and I still think there’s a lot more that needs to be done. But the fact that what we did was created all of this was huge and very proud of it.
Speaker D [00:08:12]:
Okay.
Sean Rasmussen [00:08:13]:
And can we talk a little bit about the participants who. Who you kind of provide? You basically hook up what sounds like you hook up causes with people who want to go and do the protest.
Adam Swart [00:08:23]:
Yeah.
Sean Rasmussen [00:08:24]:
And I guess to just incentivize them a little bit with some money. Can you talk a bit about who those people are?
Adam Swart [00:08:30]:
Well, yeah.
Sean Rasmussen [00:08:30]:
How you find them?
Adam Swart [00:08:31]:
So let me kind of start with a little bit of an anodyne historical reference. So before 1911, members of the British Parliament were not paid for their services. So who would you guess would become a member of the British Parliament prior to 1911?
Speaker C [00:08:49]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:08:50]:
It was the landed gentry people who essentially were in Parliament for ego and in Parliament to further their landed gentry interests.
Speaker C [00:09:00]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:09:00]:
So ordinary people could never get elected to Parliament. Because even if they got elected, they couldn’t essentially sustain themselves because they weren’t given a salary.
Speaker C [00:09:08]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:09:08]:
So I kind of make that analogy because that’s how I feel about protest in some ways.
Speaker C [00:09:14]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:09:15]:
If you were not to compensate any protesters, then not all, but a majority of protesters would be retirees, college students, would be people with flex work situations.
Speaker C [00:09:28]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:09:28]:
So tech workers. So probably well to do tech workers who can work when at. When they please, maybe stay at home wives or whatever trust fund there’s. Or whatever people. People who have the sort of means and probably people without kids who have more means.
Speaker C [00:09:44]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:09:45]:
Okay, so that’s a, that’s maybe 20% of the country.
Speaker C [00:09:49]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:09:49]:
Is, is only represented in these protests.
Speaker C [00:09:53]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:09:53]:
And for everybody else they can protest, of course they legally can do it, but in order to do that they, it would require a much larger sacrifice. So you’re much less likely to see them out there. So if you want to janitors, you want hotel maids, you want housekeepers, whatever, you’re very unlikely to see those people because simply they could not. You can’t take time off of McDonald’s to go protest.
Speaker C [00:10:16]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:10:16]:
They’re not going to give you time off to do that.
Speaker C [00:10:18]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:10:18]:
Starbucks, whatever. So, okay, so all of that to say is that what we do is we compensate people. So now we change the dynamic. So now if we’re kind of compensating people a couple hundred bucks, whatever to be go out to something, well then the math changes. Now that person who works hourly can afford to take an unpaid time off day to protest for something they believe in. So we, we change the math is what we really succeed in doing.
Speaker D [00:10:51]:
Okay.
Adam Swart [00:10:52]:
And for so we actually democratize. I know people are like on the Internet are always like oh my God, that’s ridiculous that you say that when you’re paying protesters. But actually like, just think about it. Don’t use your emotion, use your head and think about it like that’s really what we’re doing.
Speaker D [00:11:09]:
Okay.
Sean Rasmussen [00:11:09]:
And I know that there’s a, there’s a kind of tension there between grassroots and like astroturf kinds of things. And I guess for listeners I’ll just say what astroturfing is, is the use of fake grassroots efforts to primarily focus on influencing public opinion, typically funded by corporations or political entities to, to kind of change opinion about things. So yeah, so like, I guess there’s always a tension there between knowing whether or not something is a grassroots real movement and whether or not it’s just like a, some kind of project you know, from above kind of thing.
Adam Swart [00:11:45]:
Yeah, well, grassroots doesn’t exist. So it’s kind of one of those things like the monster. It’s like, okay, there’s no such thing as grassroots protests. So when people are like, oh, well, it should be grassroots, like what? You tell me a grassroots movement and I’ll show you how it’s not grassroots.
Speaker C [00:12:03]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:12:04]:
I mean, and there’s a, there’s a spectrum, of course, but let me give you an example of something that a lot of people would say was, is grassroots. But I will, I’ll explain to you why it’s not grassroots.
Speaker D [00:12:16]:
Sure.
Adam Swart [00:12:17]:
Let’s just say you have a few moms. You, you know, they’re upset because the, the school books are outdated. So they say, okay, well, we’re going to go work together and maybe bring in more moms and, and we’re going to make sure that, that the schoolbooks aren’t so outdated. And we’re going to write to the school board, we’re going to go make signs and go to the school board meetings and just keep doing that, making calls until, until that, that happens.
Speaker C [00:12:44]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:12:45]:
Well, you would generally associate that with a grassroots movement because no one’s getting paid. But what I’ll tell you is, and I don’t mean to be sexist because you could have husbands involved in this too, but, but probably more likely to be moms, just to be real. So the husbands, essentially whoever is working so that these women can do that activism, is essentially funding the protest.
Speaker C [00:13:10]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:13:10]:
Because I guarantee you that the housekeeper, the McDonald’s worker, the taco stand owner is not out there doing that because they have bills to pay and they don’t have the time to engage in those activities. So the probably, mostly women who are engaging with that are probably stay at home moms or perhaps they have very flexible work, kind of upper middle class, upper class kind of job that affords them that ability to, to, to do that. So essentially what you’re witnessing as a funded protest, it’s just not funded so directly.
Speaker C [00:13:45]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:13:45]:
So, so even like what you’d think of as the most grassroots imaginable is not really grassroots. It’s funded. So how was that better? How is that more democratic than crowds on demand saying, hey, we’re doing a rally in Minneapolis because Minneapolis has gone just simply too unsafe. And we are doing a rally of the people who are on the front lines of safety.
Speaker C [00:14:12]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:14:13]:
And saying we want a safer city and we want more police on the streets and we have Walgreens workers and we have McDonald’s workers. And we have the people, the very people who are subjected to these dangerous crimes on the street of Minneapolis. And we say we’re going to put them all together and we’re going to compensate them to attend.
Speaker C [00:14:33]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:14:34]:
Is that really less democratic than the rich soccer moms going and making the signs?
Speaker C [00:14:41]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:14:42]:
And again, I think that all of it is great, but is that less democratic is what I’m saying?
Sean Rasmussen [00:14:48]:
Yeah, I guess if I see the, you know, you know, if you have a lot of money and you can. And you can really, you know, pack the crowds out there or create these campaigns, what does that do?
Adam Swart [00:14:59]:
If you don’t have a good cause, if you have a lot of money and don’t. And you can pack a crowd and you can spend a ton of money, what does that do if the cause doesn’t resonate?
Sean Rasmussen [00:15:09]:
Yeah.
Adam Swart [00:15:10]:
And what does that answer the question for you? What that does is ultimately it’s going to fizzle.
Speaker C [00:15:16]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:15:16]:
And I’ll give you an example. I mean, you’re up north in Canada. Um, but maybe your listeners have heard of a gentleman named Jeb Bush. Jeb Bush, brother of George W. Bush, ran for president. He was generally considered to be the front runner in the 2016 presidential election.
Speaker C [00:15:34]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:15:35]:
He, I think, raised about 2 to $300 million. That’s hundreds of millions of dollars.
Speaker C [00:15:40]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:15:41]:
For his campaign. So what his money did was it got him ads. He was everywhere. You know, everybody knew who Jeb Bush was. And the name recognition obviously didn’t hurt. Although, I mean, that name isn’t always well regarded. But, okay, so we had this name recognition. Ultimately, Trump comes in right, with. With name recognition and fairness. But who. I think he spent like maybe 1/100th of what Jeb spent in the campaign and trounces Jeb. Why? Not because Jeb didn’t have the money to compete. It’s because ultimately Jeb’s message didn’t really resonates. So the money is important, don’t get me wrong, the money and the crowd size, because obviously, I’m not trying to discount what I do, but what I’m saying is the crowd size is the catalyst, but the movement ultimately has to take shape. So the. Yes, if you have a great product launch and two people are there, it’s not going to get picked up in the media, perhaps.
Speaker C [00:16:42]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:16:43]:
So having the people there is important, but ultimately, if you have 10,000 people there, but the product isn’t good, it’s ultimately going to fizzle. So I think that, yes, money buys attention but it doesn’t buy a guarantee of success.
Sean Rasmussen [00:17:01]:
No, no. Well, maybe we can get then to the dark side of this business, which is something you’ve been speaking out about just to kind of turn it around and, and look at how it can go wrong. Because obviously I think he’s been speaking out about things like Iranian influence, like foreign governments and shady proxies. And I think it’s also to the 717 protest, which I think is like, what, an anti Trump campaign. Yeah, okay, yeah, let’s talk a bit about some of those and see, because I get your defense of it. But also too, you can see that even you yourself can see that there are dark. Oh, there’s a dark side here.
Adam Swart [00:17:44]:
And you need to be aware of the fact that hostile countries. So to your first point, hostile countries, Iran, you know, the countries that you would think would not like America, they don’t like America.
Speaker C [00:17:56]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:17:57]:
And they’re, but their goals are actually not so much to hurt America, but more to create spectacle that they can use in their country.
Speaker C [00:18:07]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:18:07]:
So when the people of China or Russia or Venezuela or Iran or whatever country you want to think of, those people, you know, look at America and they say, oh, well, we want the freedom America has, we want the prosperity America has. They want to be able to show tape in initially with state tv, but now they actually do it on social media of riots in the street, tear gassing and say, look at it. You don’t want to be like America. It’s so chaotic. The Chinese do this like, like a lot within China where a lot of Chinese people I’ve talked to think America is basically like the Wild West. You know, people are there like gunfights everywhere. Like, you know, they literally think it’s like very, very dangerous. And that’s a narrative that the Chinese government has effectively propagated.
Speaker C [00:19:00]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:19:01]:
Because it suits them. Because when people say, oh well, we want freedom, then they can say, oh, well, no, you don’t really want to be like America, do you? Like, look at how bad America is. So, so I think that, that you have to be aware that these countries are trying to use every mechanism from social media to protest, to essentially propagate that. And obviously Iran and those other countries were probably behind a lot of the, the protests on the campuses to some degree. My guess is that they were probably funding the more violent parts of it.
Speaker C [00:19:33]:
Right?
Adam Swart [00:19:34]:
Because I think you have a, there’s a, there’s a huge incentive for them to do that because if they fund a violent protest in Molotov Cocktails. It creates a great visual that they would really want to. Want to do because of course, Iran doesn’t really care about the Palestinians. The Palestinians are sort of a prop for them.
Speaker D [00:19:52]:
Okay.
Sean Rasmussen [00:19:53]:
It’s funny though, like the objectives of foreign governments often line up quite well with quite a lot of the media elite and educated elite who have a kind of anti American sentiment baked into their politics.
Adam Swart [00:20:10]:
Yeah. I’ve always found that really curious that the educated elite don’t have more love for America. And I think they should because America’s obviously been good for good to them. I think there is. Yeah. They tap into those to that sort of skepticism of America. I think that’s true.
Sean Rasmussen [00:20:33]:
So foreign interference can happen. So here’s a case where money is bad for politics because it’s not the money that you want to be dumped into.
Adam Swart [00:20:41]:
I don’t think foreign money like in that respect, a foreign company. Sure. But not like foreign country money.
Sean Rasmussen [00:20:48]:
Yeah, yeah. So they’re doing it for domestic reasons. But it also creates a lot of local problems and a lot of division locally as well. Right. Like between like Muslims and Jews.
Adam Swart [00:20:58]:
And something that came out in the Times, the New York Times of all places recently about how China is essentially even interfering in local politics in New York.
Speaker C [00:21:11]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:21:12]:
Where they’re trying to use small dollar contributions and other strategies on the local level to essentially kneecap, metaphorically politicians who they think are unfavorable to China.
Speaker C [00:21:26]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:21:27]:
So, you know, it’s curious because you think, okay, maybe you don’t like someone who is pro Taiwan on a national level, but who cares if there’s a city council member. But they’re really the, the Chinese are thinking the long term approach where someone’s city council today and then their senator of tomorrow.
Speaker C [00:21:46]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:21:46]:
So they’re actually trying to kneecap people who are anti China even at the local level so that they never rise to that next level.
Sean Rasmussen [00:21:57]:
Yeah, that’s some long term thinking going on there.
Adam Swart [00:21:59]:
Very, very intelligent. And it’s the type of thing that the CIA used to do a lot. And we, we’ve kind of. The CIA doesn’t do it anymore. We probably should. I mean there are doing it. We probably should be doing that stuff abroad too of doing all that. We used to do it in the Cold War. The US did all this stuff. You know, we were. And, and there’s. We got a lot of press for the coups that were engineered.
Speaker C [00:22:23]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:22:24]:
Like Chile or whatever. And, and that’s misinformation mostly. I think there’s a lot of information to suggest that coup would have happened in, even without the United States. But there’s not a lot of as much information about how the United States did a lot of just sort of information campaign abroad to try to kind of build up politicians who were kind of more favorable, pro Western, pro capitalist, pro US Right, sure. And that’s natural. But, but again, I, I oppose it when a foreign country is doing that on our soil.
Sean Rasmussen [00:22:57]:
Yeah, we’ve had that actually in Canada too. They’ve been meddling with, well, Chinese have.
Adam Swart [00:23:01]:
Been meddling in Canada for a long time and, well, you have Chinese interference. You also have Indian interference.
Speaker C [00:23:06]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:23:07]:
Because you have a lot of the influence because the Sikhs are a big voting bloc in Canada. But then they tend to be more anti, and correct me if I’m wrong, they tend to be more anti the sort of the Modi government. So then the, the Indian government is trying to sort of influence. So the Sikhs tend to be more on the liberal NDP side of things. So then the Indian government wants to then kind of swing things for the conservatives because they think that’s going to be more favorable to them. So it’s a very interesting dynamic. And I obviously think that you guys should have zero tolerance for any foreign interference in your politics and it should be, again, what works for Canada.
Speaker D [00:23:51]:
Mm. Mm.
Sean Rasmussen [00:23:53]:
Have you ever turned down a protest campaign for ethical reasons?
Adam Swart [00:23:57]:
Sure. I mean, we’ve, we’ve turned it down for ethical reasons for sure. So one of the things I would consider like an ethical. Because we’ve turned down campaigns for all kinds of reasons, like, so the foreign stuff, obviously hate groups, obviously something where we’re putting our people at risk, for example, so this could be. We’re not asked to do a violent protest, obviously, but even if, like, we’re having peaceful protesters next to a violent protest, right. Then, then that could put our people at risk because the, the authorities might have trouble distinguishing between the peaceful and the violence. So, so that’s a consideration. So you’re asking about ethical. So ethical is kind of a whole different category. And, and I think that’s an important one. And one of the main ones reasons that I would turn down it on ethical lines is it’s a bully campaign. I don’t like to bully people. I like to kind of hold powerful people to account. Powerful companies, powerful politicians, powerful people. So if it’s a case of like, I don’t know, like, for example, like protesting at a drag event, right. Where, okay, like, I have, I. Let’s just say I have sympathy with the, the position that we don’t want kids exposed to the drag shows. So let’s just say, okay, maybe the concept of that, fine, well, but now you’re protesting outside a drag brunch. That, that to me feels bullying where you’re picking on somebody who is not powerful, like some drag performer in some small town, right? And to me, I feel like that feels like more like bullying. If you want to stop the drag performance, like, sure, go to the city council meeting, go to the school board meeting, protest the school board, protest the state Board of education, right? Like, do that, but don’t go after some drag performer. Do you see what I’m saying? Where, like, that feels like bullying that person. So that’s like maybe like a hypothetical example of something that I would feel that, hey, even if I agree with your overarching objectives, I really, really don’t like bullying.
Speaker D [00:26:15]:
Okay?
Sean Rasmussen [00:26:16]:
I know there is in, in Toronto here. There’s a Jewish neighborhood close by, and they were like, busing Gaza protesters into. Into that neighborhood to like, just harass locals, basically.
Adam Swart [00:26:29]:
And that’s like, that’s, that’s, that’s not, that’s unethical, right? So if you want to protest at the Israeli consulate, right, Israeli embassy, that, okay, that’s fine. But now you’re just going to like a random, I don’t know, Jewish delicatessen and screaming at them for Gaza, like, that feels like bullying to me. You know that even if the delicatessen owner is the biggest Netanyahu cheerleader, he doesn’t have any power, right? Like, why are you going after this? It feels like bullying. I like to go after the powerful, right? So again, even if those object, even if the, like, you want to do that, go after the concert, go after, go after the really wealthy donors who are donating to whatever the, the cause that you don’t like, are, but don’t, don’t go harass ordinary people. And by the way, I would say the same thing to the. Is if the Israeli folks were going into some Arab neighborhood and doing the same thing to them.
Sean Rasmussen [00:27:33]:
Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. And so you mentioned before how against sort of violent protests you are. Have you had any experiences where protests that you think are just going to be nonviolent end up sort of like tipping over into or get hijacked or anything like that?
Adam Swart [00:27:51]:
Well, I’ve been in this business for 13 years, so I have a pretty good sense of when things are going to get tense and when things are not going to. And just because things are going to get not. Are going to get Tense doesn’t mean we won’t take it on. So I don’t want people to think I’m a total coward. But like, you know, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll take on things that get tense. But we try to have precautions such as security and other, you know, we alert police and other things so that, that we are aware of, of that some of the things that do get violent that let’s just say you wouldn’t think would get violent. I have not generally experienced that. We’re generally aware. I mean to be clear, our people have never, ever, ever committed any act of violence in a 13 year period. They’re specifically instructed, they’re peaceful, they’re respectful. They’re not even, they’re told not even to swear at somebody and to be respectful. You know what I mean? Be a rock when someone’s yelling at you. That always looks better. There are cases that you wouldn’t expect to get violent, that have gotten violent. This was one that I was not involved in. But the LA City council was rightly considering legislation to ban child sex offenders from camping near schools. So. Okay, that seems pretty reasonable, right? That if you are a convicted child sex offender, you shouldn’t be able to camp near a school. Okay, like, like, let’s just say probably 99.9% of people agree with that. Well, the other point one percent stormed the city council chambers and shut down city council to defend the child sex offenders.
Speaker C [00:29:37]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:29:37]:
To camp near schools. Like what? Like that was, that was what I would say. I did not expect, I would not have expected something like that. So there are times where it can be unanticipated and there’s an element on both the far left and the far right that I don’t even think are passionate about the issues at all. They just are looking for excuses for violence and chaos. And it’s important to be aware of those groups.
Speaker D [00:30:08]:
For sure.
Sean Rasmussen [00:30:09]:
I know people like, who are even just kind of perpetually angry at the whatever and they’re going to kind of go from protest to protest. It doesn’t really almost matter.
Adam Swart [00:30:18]:
That’s right, that’s correct. And they’re, they’re agitators. Some of the people are just professional looters. They like to loot and they’ll attach themselves to blm, they’ll attach themselves to right wing, you know, proud boys, whatever, you know, whatever makes sense.
Sean Rasmussen [00:30:33]:
What did you think about that? Mostly peaceful protesters gaffe. The news coverage of Portland that was.
Adam Swart [00:30:43]:
Referring to summer of 2020 and this was a CNN reporter who, against the backdrop of a burning city, the piece, the protesters were mostly peaceful. Well, I mean, technically, technically, the reporter was not wrong in the sense of a majority of the people who participating at the protesters, the protests did not themselves commit an act of violence. So actually, technically, he’s correct. So let me be devil’s advocate for a second. While generally probably agreeing with your sentiment, I think every protester, whether it’s January 6th, BLM, whatever, needs to be judged on their own conduct and in an ideologically neutral way. So the sense of, hey, if you were there at an event where a Molotov cocktail was thrown, if you did not throw the Molotov cocktail, you are not responsible for someone else doing that.
Speaker C [00:31:48]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:31:48]:
If you’re holding a BLM sign or you’re holding a Trump is the legitimate president sign.
Speaker C [00:31:54]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:31:55]:
January six or whatever they were holding.
Speaker C [00:31:57]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:31:57]:
The fact that someone else did something violent is not on you.
Speaker C [00:32:02]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:32:02]:
We live in a country of individual rights.
Speaker C [00:32:04]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:32:05]:
Not collective punishment. So I’ll kind of put that as a preface for the general kind of sense, which is that people need to be judged on their own volition. If you trespass, it doesn’t matter if it’s for blm, neo Nazi, Trump, mago, whatever, you’re trespassing. If you’re violent, doesn’t matter what the cause is, you’re violent.
Speaker C [00:32:27]:
Right? Right.
Adam Swart [00:32:28]:
So of course, that was an absurd statement. Everything I said, you know, with everything I said to preface it, that was an absurd statement that he said. But it goes to the fact that our biased media, like, there’s very, very little unbiased media. Now, our biased media does not want to cover a. With any degree of rationality. They, they are, they want to say what their viewers want to hear.
Speaker C [00:33:03]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:33:03]:
And their viewers want to hear, oh, this is a righteous protest about, you know, a police, you know, killing of an unarmed person. So they want everything they hear to confirm their beliefs. Just like conservative media wants to present a certain way.
Speaker C [00:33:27]:
Right?
Speaker D [00:33:28]:
Sure.
Adam Swart [00:33:29]:
Conservative media presents Chicago as a hellhole.
Speaker C [00:33:33]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:33:33]:
And I will say I was in Chicago last week and albeit I was not in the bad neighborhoods of Chicago. So I’m not trying to say all of Chicago is great, but I’m saying the idea that Chicago as a whole is a hellhole, it was like contradicted by my three hour walk through the city. I walked three hours and saw like two homeless people and was not threatened once.
Speaker C [00:33:55]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:33:55]:
So not saying there isn’t violence, not saying that the mayor isn’t a total Fool.
Speaker C [00:34:00]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:34:00]:
Of course all of those things can be true. But, but it was, it is exaggerated. Why? Because that’s what the conservative media audience wants to hear. Right? So. So yeah, of course people are going to be told what they want to hear. I think it sucks that there isn’t this sort of objective journalist that has trust of people on both sides of like, hey, when this journalist says it, I’m going to pay attention to it.
Sean Rasmussen [00:34:27]:
I find protest really, I’m not a joiner, so I don’t like to go to protests or I don’t even really feel comfortable if I go to a sporting event, like cheering along with everyone. I find it kind of that mob mentality kind of just rubs me the wrong way. But one of the criticisms of like participating in those types of, of things is like, you know, you may, you know, say you saw the George Floyd video and it really upset you that this person got abused by the police. And then you want to go out and, you know, show your support. So you go out to a BLM thing. Yeah, but like BLM has like some pretty radical ideologies associated with them. Anti anti American, anti capitalist, all kinds of. They just run the gamut of craziness in the, in the background. So you’re kind of marching at a.
Adam Swart [00:35:15]:
BLM protest, even wackier. Actually, the BLM Canada people are, were like even nuttier about them. So yeah, the. Even. Even in Canada, it’s like, it’s crazy. Anyway, Sorry, go on.
Sean Rasmussen [00:35:28]:
No, I was just going to say. So you have. So if you go out, you want to do this nice thing by going out and supporting, you know, protesting violence against minorities, but then you end up kind of being part of a movement that. Which is quite. Has a lot of negative aspects to it.
Speaker D [00:35:43]:
So.
Speaker C [00:35:43]:
Correct.
Adam Swart [00:35:43]:
And you lend your body to a sort of a show that that movement has support, when in fact what you’re saying is, hey, so I mean, BLM was kind of a fraud, unfortunately perpetrated. And it’s very unfortunate because I met with BLM when it was starting. I remember they asked me, some of the key people asked me for advice. This was, I want to say, 2015, before BLM became widely known because people didn’t get started after the George Floyd. It actually started around the time of the Trayvon Martin, like 2015 time. And I said, you guys need to focus on economic inclusion and wealth creation.
Speaker C [00:36:29]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:36:29]:
And establish black America as the ultimate independent voting bloc that will vote for its economic interests and will not and doesn’t owe anything to Democrats. Doesn’t owe anything to Republicans and will fight for black people regardless of the party.
Speaker C [00:36:47]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:36:47]:
And you can, because the fact that they always vote that the black, all the black leaders always support the Democrats actually makes the black vote very weak because they know they don’t have to do anything for black America.
Speaker C [00:37:02]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:37:02]:
So it’s all just sort of lip service.
Speaker D [00:37:04]:
Sure, sure.
Adam Swart [00:37:05]:
So if both parties had to compete for black America, it actually would make him so much more powerful. And if the focus was on wealth creation and ownership, then the community would become much more powerful. So less susceptible to, to being able to be mistreated by the police or whatever the case may be.
Sean Rasmussen [00:37:27]:
But they didn’t take your advice on that?
Adam Swart [00:37:29]:
Well, I think the facts, clearly they didn’t. And unfortunately it went in this kind of very dark direction and not only like ideologically, but then it also sort of became a grift where they were more or less like just, you know, it was, it was kind of what, it’s a modern day indulgence.
Speaker C [00:37:49]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:37:49]:
Like the Catholic church used to do, where you’d kind of pay to go to heaven. Like Amazon and Apple and all these companies. I forget. Exactly. I don’t like list all of them because I could be getting some of them wrong. But all these billionaires and big companies donated to BLM as basically it was like protection money. Basically. Like, if you don’t want a mob at your offices calling you racist, right. We’re going, you better pay up.
Speaker C [00:38:15]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:38:15]:
And then those people use the money to buy themselves houses and, you know, mansions and whatnot.
Speaker C [00:38:20]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:38:21]:
So it was just kind of a fraud perpetrated and also misused by, you know, like the Real Housewives of wherever. Like what turned out to the blm? Like do you think they know anything about like, you know, institutional racism? No, they were just flexing on Instagram. So BLM is one of the biggest failures to the black community ever. And it like did such a disservice to the black community. Like, if I were in the black community, I would be demanding answers from these people because they, they. You had an opportunity to really have lasting change and all you did was made a few people rich.
Sean Rasmussen [00:39:00]:
Is there like, I, I feel like a lot of it comes to, comes down to media kind of not doing their job, which is not actually investigating and reporting on these things and also having a preset narrative. Like, I think a lot of, you know, a lot of people come from, say, come from Ivy League backgrounds and become journalists or whatever. They have a, they have like a Lot of these sort of critical fear ideas in their head and they think that everything is all secret racism everywhere. And they see it everywhere. And so in that case, when they see like whether. Whether it meets up with the statistical facts or not about. About violence against blacks, it becomes part of the narrative and they don’t need to report on. On the truth about it.
Adam Swart [00:39:39]:
What predicts that Exactly. It goes back to what I said about the media’s bias. And they, they don’t have to. And they don’t want to report facts that don’t kind of align with what they’re saying. So the fact that, that like what I think a third of big city police chiefs are black.
Speaker C [00:39:56]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:39:57]:
The fact that a large. That black people are represented proportionally in terms of Black people are about 13% of the population in America. And I believe they’re represented at those levels within the police departments.
Speaker C [00:40:12]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:40:12]:
The fact that black people are represented at the higher levels of the police departments, the fact that police violence against black people has gone down.
Speaker C [00:40:20]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:40:20]:
So again, it’s not to say that, well, that there wasn’t police brutality in the case of George Floyd. It’s not to say that there isn’t disproportionate brutality against African Americans. All of those things can be true. But the fact that they refuse to contextualize it and to basically act again like the streets are a killing field for black people in. Is misleading and wrong. And of course, in poll after poll, the defund movement, which we have done campaigns against, was opposed by a vast majority of black people.
Speaker C [00:40:58]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:40:58]:
The majority of black people do not like police brutality. They do believe, correctly that they are being singled out for police SOPs, for example. But overall they will like more police presence. They just want responsible police presence, which isn’t. That we all want.
Sean Rasmussen [00:41:16]:
Yeah. I mean, when you remove police from an area, the people who suffer most are the poor and the people who don’t have means.
Adam Swart [00:41:22]:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So again, BLM was a. Was really just had such a negative effect on the black community, unfortunately. And their protests were really a part of that.
Sean Rasmussen [00:41:34]:
Working in the field that you’re in, have you. Have your political views changed at all over the years as you. As you’ve been doing this?
Adam Swart [00:41:41]:
Well, yeah, I mean, I would say yes. I mean, I grew up as a Democrat. Right. I’m from California and I’m definitely not a conservative by any stretch now, but I definitely would call myself an independent. And both parties have to earn my vote. And there are. I’m on the side of common sense. So there are areas where I think that the Democrats are on the side of common sense still. So I don’t think people should. I mean, this isn’t a case in Canada, but in our country, there are people who literally die because they don’t have access to health care.
Speaker C [00:42:12]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:42:13]:
That is a moral sin. And Democrats are on the side of common sense and saying that is wrong. And Republicans don’t seem to care. So I’m on the Democrat side on that. Republicans are on the side of common sense when they say, you know, they’re. We shouldn’t have a crazy ideology in our schools that tells people America is like a bad place. We shouldn’t defund the police.
Speaker C [00:42:37]:
Right.
Adam Swart [00:42:37]:
We should have law enforcement and all of that. So where there is common sense, those are the areas that I like to work in. So I don’t associate myself with either political party, and I don’t plan to unless one party becomes the party of common sense, which neither party has done yet.
Speaker D [00:42:58]:
Yeah.
Sean Rasmussen [00:42:59]:
And like, from the sounds of it, you don’t feel conflicted about, like. Like the work you’re doing. Like, you kind of back what you’re. What the campaigns you are, and you feel like this is a valid part of the political process.
Adam Swart [00:43:10]:
Well, I’ll put it this way. So I love doing stuff I agree with. And sometimes there are things where maybe I don’t disagree, but I. It’s not a cause that I am actively, like, engaged in or. But I’m like, hey, let’s hear it out. The way I look at it is, like, if you buy an ad on the news, right. The. The news channel doesn’t have to agree with you, but it has to be, like, not totally offended by what you’re saying. I would do it so you don’t have to. I don’t have to completely agree with you, but I have to see, hey, this merits being discussed.
Speaker D [00:43:44]:
Yeah, yeah.
Sean Rasmussen [00:43:47]:
So, yeah. So big picture, like, do political protests actually do anything? What’s the purpose of them? Nowadays, like, in moder society, we have social media, we have all these communications technologies. Do we really need to go and, like, move our bodies to a particular location to make something happen?
Adam Swart [00:44:02]:
I would argue that because of that, it’s almost more important because essentially online is so. Is easy to ignore because you’re so used to it. But having people show up outside your offices, you can’t ignore. You’re outside your government, outside your offices, and have people out there. No, it has a few purposes. Number one, it forces the issue into consciousness. If you see the people there, you can’t ignore it. You can ignore online. Number two, it gets media attention because media needs to have something to cover. And number three, it actually persuades people that you see to have to listen.
Sean Rasmussen [00:44:43]:
How would you see curbing some of the bad protests like blocking traffic or creating, you know, bullying situations or how do you, how do you manage that in like a, you know, you obviously want to preserve the right to protest, is the answer.
Adam Swart [00:44:58]:
We don’t. We wouldn’t do any of it. So crowds. Army doesn’t curb traffic or, or block roads. Now we might block a road if there’s a permit. So if we have a permit to block a road just like anyone else, like, if you had a permit, then you have a permit. Well, we would get the permit first. Yeah, but the 1, 1 misnomer. Just a little advice, because I know we’re near the end of the time to your listeners. They want you to think you need a permit for a protest. You, for the most part, don’t. Unless you’re going to block a street or have like a big sound system. You don’t need a permit. They want you to think you need a permit. You do not express your First Amendment rights. Like you don’t need the government’s permission to do it.
Speaker D [00:45:35]:
Okay. Okay.
Adam Swart [00:45:37]:
Yeah. I so enjoyed this conversation.
Sean Rasmussen [00:45:41]:
Me too. Me too. Thanks again for coming on and shedding a light on this issue. I didn’t really know too much about the sort of paid protest side of things. It’s really fascinating.
Adam Swart [00:45:50]:
It’s important, and I think it’s awesome. And my advice to my friends in Canada is to keep demanding true free speech because the Commonwealth law of Britain and the Commonwealth countries just does not afford enough free speech protections and demand real free speech. I don’t care if you’re liberal or conservative.
Speaker C [00:46:13]:
It’s.
Adam Swart [00:46:14]:
At some point it’s going to bite you. The fact that they can put you in prison or, or sue you to death for like some sort of innocuous statement like don’t, don’t let it happen and don’t let whoever is in power convince you that this is. That it’s just to limit hateful statements. Like, the definition of a hateful statement is so subjective. So demand real speech from Carney and, and demand it from the Conservatives if they ever can get their act together.
Sean Rasmussen [00:46:41]:
Sounds good. I totally agree with that sentiment.
Adam Swart [00:46:44]:
Thanks, Sean. Have a good one.
Sean Rasmussen [00:46:45]:
Thanks, Adam. Take care. That’s it for this episode of Viewpoints. Thanks for listening. If you like viewpoint diversity and you want to hear more like this. Don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. To find out more, visit viewpointspodcast Cat and if you have ideas for topics or guests, we’d love to hear from you. You can connect using the contact form in the website, or you can send me an email directly at shawnuepointspodcast.
