In fact, I think it’s possible that one of the most effective organizers in this entire cursed year is Seth Todd, a local man who appeared at the small protests outside the Portland Oregon Immigration and Customs Enforcement office a few weeks ago in an inflatable frog costume. He’s been there regularly since—his most viral moment came when ICE officers angry that he was coming to the aid of another protester sprayed mace up his air vent. But he’s been on the news again and again, becoming in the process that most exalted of all humans, a living meme.
Because of the rightly central place that the civil rights movement holds in our history, we tend to think of protest as necessarily somber and dignified. Those were the moods that that intuitive master strategist Dr. King summoned most effectively. They were designed to appeal to the sentiments of the white Americans he was facing, and to give a socially acceptable form to the deep and righteous anger of Black Americans. King understood that one of his tasks was to persuade the American mainstream that segregation—an accustomed practice—was brutal; quiet dignity against ferocious assault helped make the case, and awed onlookers with the bravery—and hence the humanity—of his followers.
If a Black woman in Sunday best presented a messaging problem for Bull Connor in Birmingham, a chubby frog presents a messaging problem for Trump, for different reasons.
We’re in a different moment now, with different needs. President Donald Trump and MAGA represent an aggressive revanchism built on a series of lies, in this case that the country’s cities are dangerous hellholes protected by dimwitted blue mayors. This is easy to disprove statistically—by many measures Portland is among the safest cities in the country; New York is safer than it’s been in at least a quarter century; Boston, which Trump was threatening last week to send troops to, is among the least violent cities America’s ever seen. But statistics have a hard time competing with lurid stories about high-profile murders or (fictitious) out-of-control crime. “I don’t know what could be worse than Portland,” the president said last week. “You don’t even have stores anymore. They don’t even put glass up. They put plywood on their windows.”
As a counter to this, a goofy inflatable frog is pretty powerful; it quickly drives home the message that Portland is more whimsical than dangerous. If a Black woman in Sunday best presented a messaging problem for Bull Connor in Birmingham, a chubby frog presents a messaging problem for Trump, for different reasons. He hates being laughed at, which is a good indication that he recognizes the power of laughter; this is the classic "emperor has no clothes" moment. Or, as Seth the frog put it, “I obviously started a movement of people showing up looking ridiculous, which is the exact point. It’s to show how the narrative that is being pushed with how we are violent extremists is completely ridiculous. Nothing about this screams extremist and violent. So it’s just a ridiculous narrative that the Trump administration wants to put out so they can continue their fascist dictatorship.”
Satire like this is not a novel aspect of protest. Americans will remember Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies—running a pig for president, scattering cash on the floor of the stock exchange. In Serbia, the Otpor movement—operating in what was a police state—used humor extensively. As the website New Tactics in Human Rights explains:
In 2000, before the fall of Slobodan Milosevic, a government initiative to support agriculture involved placing boxes in shops and public places. It asked people to donate one dinar (Serbian currency) for sowing and planting crops. In response, Otpor! arranged its own collection called “Dinar za Smenu” (Dinar for a Change). This initiative was implemented several times and in different places in Serbia. It consisted of a big barrel with a photo of Milosevic. People could donate one dinar, and would then get a stick they could use to hit the barrel. At one point, a sign suggested that if people did not have any money because of Milosevic’s politics, they should hit the barrel twice.
When the police removed the barrel, Otpor! stated in a press release that the police had arrested the barrel. Otpor! claimed that the initiative was a huge success. They had collected enough money for Milosevic’s retirement, and that the police would pass the money on to him.
Hey, and Otpor won—Milosevic was toppled, and many other campaigns have picked up on the strategy around the world. As the Tunisian human rights campaigner Sami Gharbia said, “Making people laugh about dangerous stuff like dictatorship, repression, censorship is a first weapon against those fears… without beating fear you cannot make any change.”
Clearly the frog moment has inspired many here. On Facebook, the Episcopalian church was sharing not just a picture, but an apropos quote from Exodus and the story of Moses against the Pharaoh: “But if you refuse to let them go, I will plague your whole country with frogs… The frogs shall come up on you and on your people and on all your officials.”
Hey, and Moses won too.
Meanwhile, back in Portland, there’s also been a naked bike ride this week to protest ICE. A brass band has been playing outside their headquarters (the clarinetist was arrested while playing the theme from Ghostbusters).
And meanwhile back in DC, the regime is insisting that their opposition is Hamas-loving terrorists. As the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said yesterday, “this crazy No Kings rally this weekend, is gonna be the farthest left, the hardest core, the most unhinged in the Democratic Party, which is a big title.”
We don’t know how Trumpism will fall. We’re in an unprecedented moment in our political history, where the normal checks and balances have failed; it’s unclear if our electoral system will survive intact enough to allow democracy to operate in any way. But for the moment our task is to drive down Trump’s popularity, relentlessly. Their greatest hope is that there will be violence they can exploit; watch out this weekend for agents provocateurs, and pay attention to the people at protests who have been trained in deescalation. But show up—right now that’s our best way to keep building the opposition.
Humor’s far from the only tool. Sometimes the best way to build a movement is to publicize the outrages of the other side: More and more Americans are seeing the images of masked secret police dragging terrified people into unmarked cars and spiriting them away; happily, that’s helping. Here’s Joe Rogan last week: “When you’re just arresting people in front of their kids, and just, normal, regular people who have been here for 20 years. That everybody who has a heart can’t get along with that. Everybody who has a heart sees that and goes, ‘That can’t be right.’”
And sometimes the best way to do it is to dress up as a frog.
