We Interviewed the Guy Who Organizes Paid Protests

Bro History

News, Society & Culture, Politics, History

4 • 929 Ratings

🗓️ 28 October 2025

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Adam Swart is the founder and CEO of Crowds on Demand — a company that literally organizes protests, rallies, and PR stunts for clients across the U.S. In this interesting conversation, Henry and Danny dig into how this shadowy industry actually works: who pays for demonstrations, how they’re staffed, and where ethics fit in when civic action becomes a paid service. Swart claims his firm turned down $20 million in offers to organize anti-Trump protests, and insists “paid protestors” aren’t what conspiracy theories make them out to be.But Danny pushes back — asking whether commodifying civic activism cheapens democracy itself. Timestamps:00:00 – Intro: Who is Adam Swart?02:00 – How the “Crowds on Demand” model was born05:00 – The mechanics of paid activism08:00 – Drawing the ethical line: Who he’ll work with15:00 – “Protest is advertising, not voting”20:00 – Does paying people for civic action corrupt democracy?27:00 – The myth of “grassroots” movements35:00 – Why Swart turned down $20M in anti-Trump business44:00 – Vetting protestors and the risk of instability52:00 – The transparency problem57:00 – “Paid protestors” and the class divide in outrage01:02:00 – Swart’s upcoming “Protester Bill of Rights” Links to our other stuff on the interwebs: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BroHistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://brohistory.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ #340 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:32.1	What's up, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Bro History. It's Henry Zimoda and Danny Abduljabar.
0:38.7	And today we got a special guest. Our guest today is Adam Swart, the founder and CEO of Crowds on Demand,
0:46.5	a company that's been organizing demonstrations, rallies, PR events, and advocacy campaigns since 2012. You may have seen him recently in the news or on television
0:57.9	talking about what he calls a significant shift in the protest landscape, including a reported
1:05.7	400% increase in requests for anti-Trump demonstrations.
1:15.9	He said that his company has even turned down roughly $20 million worth of related business to organize such protests.
1:17.9	And we'll definitely circle back to that a little later in the conversation.
1:21.8	But for now, though, I just want to start out with the basics, you know, how this industry
1:25.8	actually works and what led
1:28.3	Adam to create this company in the first place. So Adam, take us back to the beginning.
1:34.3	Like, how did crowds on demand start? What kind of gap did you see that made you think there
1:39.7	was some, there was room for a business like this? Sure. So we started 13 years ago.
1:44.8	And I started working for political campaigns, mostly on the Democrat side.
1:49.7	But I would definitely consider myself an independent politically now.
1:53.2	But a lot of the people managing those campaigns came of age.
1:57.2	You know, they were my age in the 60s where drawing crowds to political events was easy.
2:02.4	You just had to put, you know, flyers on the quad and boom, there were 10,000 students out there
2:07.0	marching for whatever the cause was of the day.
	...

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