Leading Anti-Trump Protest Organizer Engages With Socialist, Communist Groups on Social Media

A key organizer of anti-Trump protests—including the “No Kings” rallies last month—appears to have social media connections with far-left organizations that include openly communist and socialist organizations.

The group, 50501—read “Fifty-Fifty-One”—is so named to symbolize 50 protests for 50 states and one movement. The 50501 movement says it had decentralized protests across the country on Feb. 17, March 4, April 5, April 19, May 1, and June 14.

The organization frames itself as mainstream, saying that it wants to “uphold the Constitution,” and asserts on its website: “Our movement shows the world that the American working class will not sit idly by as plutocrats rip apart their democratic institutions and civil liberties while undermining the rule of law.”

However, the Oversight Project, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group, contends that 50501’s social media engagement demonstrates the movement is not mainstream. 

Instagram accounts of the 50501 chapters were more likely to follow the Instagram accounts of radical organizations than they were to follow legacy media outlets and or almost any politician, according to an analysis by the Oversight Project.

“Overall, all our results showed that the recent protest movement is broadly aligned with known communist, neo-Marxist, and foreign influence groups,” the Oversight Project report says. 

A spokesperson for 50501 did not respond to inquiries from The Daily Signal for this article as of publication time. 

The Oversight Project says it collected lists of who 50501’s social media managers followed from 50501-affiliated Instagram accounts in 34 states and Washington, D.C. The Oversight Project used that data to determine who 50501 organizers associated their movement with. 

“From this we conclude that, despite their public pronouncements about protecting democracy and opposing authoritarianism, the organizers of the ‘No Kings’ protests are aligned with antidemocratic groups who seek to impose a communist utopia in America,” the Oversight Project report states. “The American people have long rejected these ideas as the road to leftist dictatorship.”

The report says 17 separate 50501 chapter accounts follow a total of 20 accounts affiliated with the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Most of those party accounts were the official accounts of local PSL chapters. 

The analysis found that 19 other Instagram accounts affiliated with the 50501 movement follow 33 Instagram accounts associated with the Democratic Socialists of America. The Democratic Socialists of America is the largest far-left socialist party in the United States. It counts among its members Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.

The Oversight Project analysis found that nine 50501 accounts followed a total of 16 Instagram accounts associated with Students for a Democratic Society, which has been a radical leftist group since the 1960s. 

Associated organizations generally means a local or state chapter.

The Oversight Project analysis found that 50501 chapters in Houston, Texas, and Washington state followed the Communist Party USA. It further found 50501 accounts followed just two different accounts associated with antifa, a far-left organization that has committed violence during riots and protests. 

The 50501 Florida chapter has followed @antifintl, which claims to be “Antifa International.” 

As far as politicians go, only Sanders gets more 50501 Instagram followers—21—than any of the far-left groups. Ocasio-Cortez has 16 followers from 50501 accounts. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, is followed by 11 of 50501’s Instagram accounts.

“Surprisingly, the most followed radical-left groups received more follows from 50501 accounts than any media outlet and nearly all politicians,” the Oversight Project report says. 

Other prominent Democrat politicians, such as former Vice President Kamala Harris, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and House Minority Leader Rep Hakeem Jeffries of New York have single-digit followings from 50501 accounts.

Among media outlets, NPR and PBS are followed by 12 separate 50501 accounts, by far the most. MSNBC has just four such followers. The Associated Press is followed by eight, while The New York Times is followed by five 50501 accounts.

NPR and PBS did not respond to inquiries for this article.

Several anti-Israel groups that became more prominent over the past two years amid anti-Israel protests occurring primarily on college campuses are also part of the mix.

Among those has been Students for Justice in Palestine. The Oversight Project analysis found that nine separate 50501 accounts followed 12 separate accounts affiliated with Students for Justice in Palestine.

An organization that has frequented rallies for Palestinians has been the ANSWER Coalition, short for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism. Chapters of 50501 in Washington state and Rhode Island follow ANSWER, the Oversight Project analysis found. ANSWER was established after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to oppose U.S. wars. 

Another group that emerged in the lead-up to the Iraq War, Code Pink, is followed by two 50501 accounts. 

The Oversight Project also found the 50501 chapter in Houston, as well as state chapters in Florida and Washington state, followed the All African People’s Revolutionary Party, which has described itself as a “permanent, independent, revolutionary, socialist, Pan-African Political Party based in Africa” and “is an integral part of the Pan-African and World Socialist revolutionary movement.”

The post Leading Anti-Trump Protest Organizer Engages With Socialist, Communist Groups on Social Media appeared first on The Daily Signal.