The Dictatorship

What anti-Trump protests can learn from Portland’s tactics

Published

6 months ago

October 16, 2025

What anti-Trump protests can learn from Portland’s tactics

When federal officers stormed out of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland, Oregon, earlier this month, President Donald Trump almost got the dramatic footage he’s been looking for since he began falsely claiming the city was a virtual war zone.

Instead, he got a viral video of a giant frog being pepper-sprayed.

As a protester fell to the ground during the confrontation, 24-year-old Seth Todd walked over in the inflatable frog costume he’s been wearing to ICE protests. An officer appeared to aim pepper spray directly at the costume’s bright orange air intake, located on his rear midsection.

A 14-second TikTok video of the encounter got 1.5 million likes, leading to a spate of news stories about the federal agents’ overreaction. In an interview with The OregonianTodd undercut the agents’ use of pepper spray even more, saying that he’s “definitely had spicier tamales.”

The Portland Frog, as he’s become known, has helped inspire other protesters to adopt a more absurdist approach to pushing back against the Trump administration’s actions. And Todd’s methods are part of a broader approach to political protest in Portland that can be traced back to Oregon’s earliest days as a state.

This history contains some hard-won lessons about political organizing that the rest of the country can use now.

Master the ‘still hunt’

Oregon’s leading suffragist in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Abigail Scott Duniwaypioneered a method she called the “still hunt,” after the hunter’s tactic of quietly stalking game. Since men’s votes were needed to win women’s equality, Duniway avoided confrontation and instead used humor to win them over. Some of her funnier lines read like they were posted on social media yesterday: “It’s odd that men feel they must protect women, since for the most part they must be protected from men,” she once said.

Make protest joyous

In the early 1900s, Portland was a hotbed for the Industrial Workers of the World, a radical labor group. When some Northwest cities such as Washington state’s Aberdeen and Spokane attempted to ban their organizing, the Wobblies, as they were called, would stage a free-speech fight. After calling in sympathizers from neighboring cities and states, a Wobbly would stand up in a public park to begin a speech. When that person was arrested, another would take his place, until the city jail was full of Wobblies, who would spend the night raucously singing pro-labor songs. Eventually, city leaders would rescind the bans.

Use overreaction to your advantage

In 1970, Portland was a mostly conservative working-class city, not inclined to support a Vietnam War protest. So, public support was not high when students at Portland State University — radicalized by the Kent State shooting — took over several blocks and put up barricades with jokey names such as Fort Tricia Nixon. But when a conservative mayor sent in police with helmets and batons to break up the protest, leaving 30 demonstrators and four police injured, something changed.

The following day, 3,500 people of all ages marched on City Hall to protest the violent handling of what became known as the Battle of Park Blocks. (In a brilliant countermove, the state’s Republican governor then helped stop more violence by working with a group of hippies to hold a massive music festival outside the city to draw potential protesters away from a planned visit by President Richard Nixon.)

Be memorable

By the time that George H.W. Bush was president, Portland had become a liberal hotbed. Bush faced so many protests during fundraising visits that a member of his administration reportedly dubbed the city “Little Beirut,” but one in particular stands out. During a visit by Vice President Dan Quayle, a group of students from nearby Reed College, calling themselves the Reverse Peristalsis Painters, swallowed mashed potatoes, food coloring and ipecac to vomit in red, white and blue in front of the hotel where he was staying. (Though memorable, the demonstration didn’t go entirely as planned: “Fight Club” novelist and former Portland resident Chuck Palahniuk noted in his book “Fugitives and Refugees” that the blue vomit came out more as green “so it looked like a protest against Italy.”)

Make the other side look silly

After a series of clashes involving the far-right Proud Boys during the first Trump administration, a group of Portland protesters set out to undermine a planned 2019 event. Calling themselves Pop Mob, short for popular mobilization, the group ran a mask-decorating station, held a banana costume dance party and encouraged people to dress up as the poop emoji as part of a “joyful resistance.” The goal was to make it harder for the Proud Boys to create slick online recruitment videos. “We’re not going to change their minds,” one organizer said. “But we can make sure their videos are filled with poop emojis and a lot of music.”

Portland’s current protesters have learned from this long history and embraced absurdist, nonviolent tactics to make their points and try to keep the public on their side.

Apart from the Portland Frog, other protesters have dressed up as a unicorn, peacock, dinosaur, raccoon and Cartman from “South Park.” They’ve also played Twister outside; worn clown makeup; formed a flash mob to dance the “Cha-Cha Slide;” held a “die-in” on a city bridge; danced to the “Ghostbusters” theme with a brass band; tied doughnuts to poles to “lure” ICE officers; played “Yakety Sax” over loudspeakers; and bicycled naked en masse through the city; among other things.

Jack Dickinson said the images undercut the narrative of a city under siege pushed by the Trump administration. A video of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem surveying the protests around the ICE facility from a rooftop, for instance, was intended to make Noem look heroic — an effort rather dramatically undercut by Dickinson standing below her in a chicken suit. But Dickinson said that the costumes also show the administration and its agents on the ground how residents really feel.

“What they rely on is fear,” he told Willamette Week. “So by coming out in an absurdist manner, it speaks to them, to some extent, that we’re actually not that afraid.”

Ryan Teague Beckwith

Ryan Teague Beckwith is a newsletter editor for BLN. He has previously worked for such outlets as Time magazine and Bloomberg News. He teaches journalism at Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies and is the creator of Your First Byline.

The Dictatorship

GOP’s Mills faces expulsion effort launched by one of his Republican colleagues

Published

54 minutes ago

April 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

GOP’s Mills faces expulsion effort launched by one of his Republican colleagues

Republican Rep. Cory Mills of Florida was already dealing with multiple, overlapping scandals when a judge issued a restraining order against the congressman last fall after one of his ex-girlfriends accused him of threatening and harassing her. Soon after, Mills found that even some of his allies were keeping him at arm’s length.

In December, Rep. Byron Donalds, a fellow Florida Republican, conceded“The allegations against Cory, to me, are very troubling. I’m concerned about him. I hope he gets his stuff worked out and cleaned up, but it has to go through ethics [the Ethics Committee]. And he has to, you know, basically do that hard work to clear his name, if it can be cleared.”

Donalds, a leading gubernatorial candidate in Florida, had previously suggested he saw Mills as a possible running mate, making the comments that much more potent.

It didn’t do Mills any favors when The Washington Post published a new report a few days ago highlighting body camera footage that showed police officers in Washington, D.C., who were prepared to arrest the GOP congressman after a woman accused him of assault last year, before a lieutenant ultimately ordered them not to when she changed her account. (Mills refused to comment, except to say that the woman’s initial claim was “patently false.”)

Two days after the Post’s report reached the public, one of Mills’ Republican colleagues announced an effort to kick the congressman out of office. NBC News reported:

Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., introduced a resolution Monday to expel Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., from Congress over accusations that include sexual misconduct.

Mills is being investigated by the House Ethics Committee in connection with allegations of ‘sexual misconduct and/or dating violence’ and campaign finance violations. He has denied any wrongdoing.

“The swamp has protected Cory Mills for far too long and we are done letting it slide,” Mace said in a statement. “We tried to censure him and strip him from his committee assignments. Both parties blocked it, but we are not backing down.”

By way of social media, the Floridian expressed confidence that he’d prevail if Mace’s resolution reached the floor, encouraging the South Carolinian to “call the vote forward.”

Time will tell whether the expulsion vote actually happens, but in the meantime, after NOTUS reported that Mills intends to respond with an expulsion resolution of his own targeting Mace, the congresswoman wrote online“Cory Mills lied about his military service, has been accused of beating women, has a restraining order against him, and has allegedly been stuffing his own pockets with federal contracts while sitting in Congress. As a survivor, I will always stand up and right the wrongs of others. He is only coming after me because he knows he’s next.”

It’s not often that Americans see members of Congress launch dueling efforts to kick each other out of office, but this is proving to be an unusually awful term.

Indeed, amid growing GOP anxieties about the upcoming midterm elections, there’s fresh evidence that the House Republican conference is both divided and unraveling.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

The Dictatorship

11 years later, the Senate Republicans’ open letter to Iran is relevant anew

Published

54 minutes ago

April 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

11 years later, the Senate Republicans’ open letter to Iran is relevant anew

As part of a series of online rants, Donald Trump complained on Monday afternoon that congressional Democrats “are doing everything possible to hurt the very strong position we are in with respect to Iran.” The president didn’t refer to any specifics, which wasn’t too surprising, since Democratic lawmakers haven’t had any success in curtailing the White House’s policy.

But as the next round of talks with Iranian officials prepares to get underwayit’s worth appreciating the fact that if Democrats were prepared to deliberately try to undermine the administration’s negotiating position, I suppose they could write a letter to Iranian leaders, encouraging them not to trust the United States — which is what Republicans did 11 years ago.

Remember this report from The New York Times in March 2015?

The fractious debate over a possible nuclear deal with Iran escalated on Monday as 47 Republican senators warned Iran about making an agreement with President Obama, and the White House accused them of undercutting foreign policy.

In a rare direct congressional intervention into diplomatic negotiations, the Republicans signed an open letter addressed to ‘leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran’ declaring that any agreement without legislative approval could be reversed by the next president ‘with the stroke of a pen.’ The letter appeared aimed at unraveling a framework agreement even as negotiators grew close to reaching it.

At the time, the international talks among the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Germany and Iran had reached a delicate stage, and an agreement over the future of Tehran’s nuclear policy was within sight.

But as the seven-nation talks reached a critical stage, Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, just two months into his term in the upper chamber, recruited 46 of his Senate GOP colleagues to write an open letter to Iranhoping to undermine the historic diplomatic opportunity.

As part of an apparent sabotage attempt, the 47 Senate Republicans effectively told Iranian officials not to trust the United States as part of the talks. (Then-Sen. Marco Rubio, a decade before he became secretary of state, was among the signatories. The Florida Republican then turned his role in the fiasco into a fundraising appeal.)

The U.S. Senate Historian’s Office explained soon after that it could not find a comparable example in the institution’s history in which “one political party openly tried to deal with a foreign power against a presidential policy, as Republicans have attempted in their open letter to Iran.”

The reactions from abroad were even more dramatic: U.S. allies said that the Republicans’ letter actually helped Iran’s negotiating positionfurther undermining the senators’ own country.

The Cotton-led effort was quickly denounced by Democrats veteran diplomat editorial boards punditsof every stripe and even some Republicansbut to date, none of the signatories has expressed regret for their role in the unsuccessful sabotage campaign.

As for how Trump and his party might respond if 47 Senate Democrats were to write an open letter to Iran right now, as part of an attempt to undermine talks in Islamabad, one can only imagine the severity of the partisan hysterics.

The Dictatorship

Trump Fed chair pick Warsh vows independence at Senate hearing

Published

2 hours ago

April 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Trump Fed chair pick Warsh vows independence at Senate hearing

Apr. 21, 2026, 3:33 PM EDT

Kevin Warsh, President Donald”https://www.ms.now/news/trump-names-kevin-warsh-as-next-federal-reserve-chair?_thumbnail_id=1163350″>Trump’s pick to chair the Federal Reserve, told lawmakers Tuesday that he would not capitulate to Trump’s demands, saying he does not see outward political pressure as a threat to the central bank’s independence.

During his Senate confirmation hearing, Trump’s millionaire nominee faced scathing questions from Banking Committee Democrats over perceived gaps in his financial disclosures and his ability to maintain the central bank’s integrity. When pressed to divulge his stance on political questions outside of the bank’s jurisdiction, he refused, saying instead that “the Fed must stay in its lane.”

Warsh used his opening remarks to convey a simple but significant argument to the senators who will decide whether he is fit to steward America’s monetary policy: Political pressure is not a threat to the central bank — opining on fiscal and social policies outside of its purview is.

The insulation of the Fed from politics was widely expected to be the defining issue of Warsh’s confirmation hearing, given that the president who appointed him has made no secret of his belief that the White House should have greater control over the nation’s monetary policies.

Testifying under oath Tuesday, Warsh said Trump never asked him to “predetermine, commit, fix or decide on any interest rate decision in any of our discussions.”

“Nor would I ever agree to do so if he had,” Warsh said.

Warsh’s declarations might wind up being beside the point when it comes to whether he’s confirmed to replace the man currently in the job.

After the Justice Department subpoenaed Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and accused him of knowingly misleading Congress about the ongoing $2.5 billion building renovation project at the Fed’s Washington headquarters, retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina vowed to block the confirmation of any Fed chair nominee until the DOJ dropped its investigation.

The subpoena came amid Trump’s public pressure campaign against Powell over his refusal to slash interest rates. His attacks included multiple threats to fire Powell and the Justice Department’s effort to pursue a criminal case against him.

Tillis decried the Justice Department’s Powell probe during his allotted time Tuesday. He focused on the potential the investigation has to delay Powell’s exit from his post as Federal Reserve chairman in May rather than the ethics of the probe itself, which he has publicly questioned in the past.

Powell has said he has no intention of leaving the central bank’s board until the DOJ drops the investigation, even though his term ends May 15. He can stay past May because he also serves as a member of the Fed’s board of governors, his term for which does not end until January 2028.

Praising Warsh for his background as an economist, Tillis made clear his “no” vote is not personal to Warsh. Tillis told MS NOW ahead of the hearing that he has spoken to the White House about his intention to vote against Warsh.

Warsh, a favorite among Republican circles and the son-in-law of billionaire Trump donor Ronald Laudertried to persuade lawmakers that he is not a reflection of the president who appointed him.

“I do not believe that independence of monetary policy is threatened when elected officials state their views on rates,” the former Morgan Stanley investment banker said in his opening remarks. “Fed independence is up to the Fed.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the committee’s highest-ranking Democrat, pressed Warsh on what she said were “secrets” in the financial disclosures he provided to the Office of Government Ethics ahead of the hearing. Warsh disclosed assets worth more than $100 million — including stakes in the prediction market platform Polymarket and Elon Musk’s SpaceX — but did not name the underlying holdings of his largest investments.

“If you can’t answer these questions, you don’t have the courage and you don’t have the independence,” Warren said after Warsh refused to say whether his undisclosed individual investments are tied to the Trump family, declined to answer a question about whether Trump lost the 2020 election and repeatedly demurred when she challenged him to name a policy point on which he disagreed with Trump.

Warsh said he would divest his undisclosed assets if confirmed, which would put him in compliance with the requirements of the ethics office. Doubling down on his bid to convince the panel of lawmakers that he will not yield to the president’s repeated calls for lower interest rates, Warsh said he is not Trump’s “sock puppet,” the term Warren used.

“Someone here is lying then,” Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., said of Warsh’s claim that Trump never asked him to cut interest rates. “It’s either you or President Trump.” Gallego pointed to reporting from The Wall Street Journal in December that Trump pressed his nominee to “support interest rate cuts” when nominating him to lead the Fed.

In a live phone interview with CNBC the morning of the hearing, Trump said he would be disappointed if Warsh does not immediately slash rates upon his confirmation.

Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., previously joined Tillis in expressing concern over the motivations behind the probe. Warren called on her Republican colleagues to block Warsh’s nomination until the investigation comes to an end.

A federal judge quashed the investigation, which had become central to Trump’s smear campaign against Powellin March. In April, the same judge denied the Trump administration’s bid to revive the subpoenas he dismissed, writing that “the Government served these subpoenas on the [Federal Reserve] Board to pressure its Chair into voting for lower interest rates or resigning.” Despite the blow, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro is still fighting to keep the investigation alive.

The banking committee, which oversees Fed nominations, has a narrow 13-11 Republican majority.

Warsh stumbled while answering questions from Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., about how he would grade the economy for working Americans. Rather than offer a serious answer about the Fed’s role in shaping the economic outlook for consumers, Warsh made a joke about grade inflation at elite universities.

Several staffers and some committee members could be seen chuckling behind him.

“Well the Americans that I talk to, particularly in the state of Georgia, who haven’t had the benefit of attending some of these elite institutions, are trying to make their lives work,” Warnock replied. “They’re sitting around their kitchen tables trying to figure out how to put their kids through school, and regardless of how the markets are doing, consumer confidence is at a record low. So that’s their grade on the economy.”

Warsh previously served as a Federal Reserve governor in the early 2000s, after being nominated by then-President George W. Bush.

Sydney Carruth is a breaking news reporter covering national politics and policy for MS NOW. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at SydneyCarruth.46 or follow her work on X and Bluesky.