US politics: Donald Trump’s re-election rally undermined by TikTok teens and K-Pop fans

The campaign team blamed violent protesters and media bias for the poor turnout, but a strategist says the real reason poses a deeper issue.

Donald Trump’s campaign team was bursting with excitement heading into the first re-election rally in three months.

Organisers declared a million supporters had registered interest in filing into the 19,000 seat arena in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with the president eager to shake off mounting criticism over his handling of the coronavirus, the Black Lives Matter movement and a falling approval rating.

When he strolled out to the podium, a nearly half empty venue robbed the known performer’s chance to incite boisterous applause and the story quickly gravitated to the thousands of empty seats.

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Mr Trump is herculean in his ability to drum up support and media traction through Twitter, but users of another social media platform are taking credit for the critical political blow.

TikTok accounts and fans of Korean pop music groups claim to have registered hundreds of thousands of tickets for the campaign rally with the intention of misleading support for the President.

The president was clearly frustrated during the rally. Picture: Ian Maule/Tulsa World/Tulsa World via AP

Mary Jo Laupp, a 51-year-old grandmother from Iowa appears to be one of the first to create the momentum.

Last week she posted a video on TikTok evoking people to visit the Trump website, register to attend, and not show up.

“All of those of us that want to see this 19,000 seat auditorium barely filled or completely empty go reserve tickets now and leave him standing alone there on the stage,” she told her followers.

The upper deck appeared largely empty during the rally. Picture: Matt Barnard/Tulsa World via AP

Initially the woman only had about 1000 followers, but the video has now been liked by more than 700,000 and shared by more than 136,000.

The movement snowballed, and was soon shared multiple times with accounts attracting millions of followers.

“Oh no, I signed up for a Trump rally and I can’t go,” another woman joked on the cult social media platform, followed by a fake cough.

Many then deleted their videos after a day or two to not raise suspension from Trump’s campaign team, YouTuber Elijah Daniel told The New York Times.

“It spread mostly through Alt TikTok – we kept it on the quiet side where people do pranks and a lot of activism,” he said.

“K-pop Twitter and Alt TikTok have a good alliance where they spread information among each other very quickly. They all know the algorithms and how they can boost videos to get where they want.”

Trump critic and US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explained her take on the low crowd numbers.

“Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID,” she said on Twitter.

“Shout out to Zoomers.

“Y’all make me so proud.”

Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID

Shout out to Zoomers. Y’all make me so proud. ☺️ https://t.co/jGrp5bSZ9T

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 21, 2020

But Mr Trump’s re-election campaign rejected claims that the social media campaign by Tik-Tok users and K-Pop fans was behind lower-than-expected turnout.

“Leftists and online trolls doing a victory lap, thinking they somehow impacted rally attendance, don’t know what they’re talking about or how our rallies work,” Mr Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale said.

“Registering for a rally means you’ve RSVPed [confirmed attendance] with a cellphone number and we constantly weed out bogus numbers, as we did with tens of thousands at the Tulsa rally, in calculating our possible attendee pool.”

Most of the crowd was squeezed into the view of the camera. Picture: Ian Maule/Tulsa World via AP

He blamed the low turnout on the “radical protests fuelled by a week of apocalyptic media coverage”, which had scared off supporters.

Republican strategist Steve Schmidt said the movement mustered through TikTok reveals the President has a material issue with young voters.

“This is what happened tonight. I’m dead serious when I say this. The teens of America have struck a savage blow against Donald Trump,” he tweeted.