>They're here to flex "ownership" of a national capital
Seeing how the government & media reacted at the start, I highly doubt a change.org petition would have had accomplished much. Having flashy show of support is way more impactful. This is the whole point of protests.
>This is a Facebook conspiracy theory convened to experience itself in person.
As I said in OP, reductionist views like this are very toxic and not how you approach disagreements in a democracy.
Attacking the character of some organizers (be it true or not) adds nothing to the discussion except divisiveness. Not only that, you seem to imply that their demands are invalid because of that, which is just a smear campaign to ignore the issues they (and the other protesters) raise.