Expanded protest crowds can blunt original organizers’ political messaging.

Evidence

The burly newcomers made it very clear, very quickly, that they didn’t give a fuck about any of that left-wing bullshit, and they didn’t come here to attend a lecture on political theory from some punks. The kids, sensing trouble, skittered away. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 409

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the MPL’s fear of message dilution expressed in paragraph 401, and ch7’s point that protest movements should be judged against their own goals. — connects to: A protest’s media success can diverge from its organizers’ goals — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 393; Digital protest crowds behave like swarms that cannot be organized durably — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 343; Egyptian organizers were astonished by their own protest’s turnout — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 220 (+11 more)

Broader Connections

• Eruptive dissent broke through the organizers’ careful moderation. #exemplifies (0.90) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 475
• Unpoliced protests leave crowds free to act out and discredit their organizers #corroborates (0.88)
• Citizens express narrower ideas as their audience grows wider #corroborates (0.75) — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”, 32