General Discussion

It aims to prepare people for situations they may encounter and help them react in helpful ways.

It's been around formally at least since the 1950s-1960s civil rights movement (and less formally well before then - see Gandhi etc.), and many groups, including Amnesty and Greenpeace, espouse it nowadays. I'm not surprised if Johnson's ignorant about that, he possibly sees the civil rights movement as an ugly and inconvenient blot on US history, nor that he can't conceive of people doing things not designed to enable them to profit financially.

I participated in many such sessions in my younger years, and also trained as a trainer. I was never paid, and never encountered anyone who was.

Some history and principles here: https://commonslibrary.org/nonviolent-direct-action-nvda-start-here/