In what was likely a response to a Fox News interview with a Vice News editor who admitted that some professional protesters were paid to organize the demonstrations outside Capitol Hill and the Supreme Court over the weekend...

clarification: I said there were some official organizations in the mix who have staff & consultants that were part of these protests. And some of them were helping individuals with tactics. That is not the same as ppl being paid to protest who don’t care about this issue. https://t.co/SZykSAj8Vt — Shawna Thomas (@Shawna) October 7, 2018

...President Trump fired off a tweet Tuesday morning that was seemingly crafted specifically to elicit howls of outrage among liberals who have repeatedly insisted that Trump's claims that some of the individuals protesting Judge Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation vote had been paid by a nonprofit funded by George Soros. Trump said that the protesters are about to "REALLY protest because they haven't gotten their checks - in other words they weren't paid!"

The paid D.C. protesters are now ready to REALLY protest because they haven’t gotten their checks - in other words, they weren’t paid! Screamers in Congress, and outside, were far too obvious - less professional than anticipated by those paying (or not paying) the bills! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 9, 2018

While it was unclear from where Trump was getting his information, the tweet was possibly a reference to Vice News editor Shawna Thomas' clarification that 'some' organizers were paid to help organize the protests, suggesting that a large portion of those who participated weren't paid.

Trump's tweet elicited a flurry of pedantic responses from unimaginative mainstream journalists, who apparently felt compelled to point out the extremely obvious fact that, if the demonstrators weren't paid, then they shouldn't be considered "paid" protesters.

This is confusing. If they are unpaid, then they cannot be called paid protesters https://t.co/auzgfwAsnb — Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) October 9, 2018

We wonder: what exactly is it about this concept that is so difficult to grasp?