The Dictatorship
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 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.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran again launched drone and missile attacks targeting Bahrainand Kuwaiton Sunday following new U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic Republic, and threatened a “complete halt” in negotiations to end the warif Washington continues its attacks.
Efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuzwithout Iran’s oversight has sparked days of crossfire. A multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Saturday it would expand a route near Omanfor inbound and outbound traffic.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Sunday reiterated the claim that Tehran must govern the strait to the Persian Gulfthat once carried a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas.
“Any attempt to establish new or separate arrangements from those currently being carried out by the Islamic Republic of Iran will only lead to further complications, delay the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and increase the level of tension,” Araghchi said.
The strait has long been considered an international waterway despite its location in Iran and Oman’s territorial waters. In recent days, Iran has twice attacked vessels going through a route near the Omani side.
A Pakistani official involved in the technical talks between the U.S. and Iran told MS NOW Sunday that talks between the sides are on hold given the ongoing fighting between the two sides. The source, who did not want to be named to discuss the sensitive matter, said the U.S., Iran, Pakistan and Qatar all have representatives currently in Switzerland to restart discussions when instructed to do so.
But the Trump administration said nothing has been canceled and technical talks are on track for the coming days.
Talks include arrangements around the strait, the removal of a U.S. blockade on Iranian ports and sanctions on Iran, and the future of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium. The two sides have 60 days from their signing of the memorandum of understanding earlier this month to work out details.
Continued conflict in Lebanon threatens the agreement, which says fighting must end on all fronts before certain issues can be discussed.
Strikes target Gulf states hosting US military
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard claimed responsibility for the attacks in Bahrain and Kuwait.
Kuwait, which hosts a major U.S. military base, said air defenses intercepted Iranian drones and two missiles just after the U.S. strikes in Iran. There were no reports of injuries or damage.
Bahrain said the Iranian strikes damaged a residential building near the international airport and no one was killed. Bahrain is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. The damaged building was not near its headquarters.
Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry denounced what it called “a dangerous escalation that reveals that what Tehran is doing is not a passing act, nor an isolated incident, but rather a deliberate approach and a systematic pattern of repeated aggression.”
Later on Sunday, Qatar said a civilian had been killed, and another person was hurt, by shrapnel related to “military operations in the area” after a vessel didn’t return at its scheduled time on Saturday. It did not give details.
Trump accuses Iran of violating ceasefire
The U.S. military said it struck Iranian military “surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities” following an attack on a ship on Saturday. The Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku carried crude oil for the state-run energy company of Qatar, another key mediator.
U.S. President Donald Trump on social media accused Iran of violating the deal and warned of a point where the U.S. may “be forced to militarily complete the job.”
“If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!” Trump wrote.
The exchanges of fire began when an Iranian drone struck a merchant vesseloff Oman on Thursday and the U.S. military retaliated.
Ship traffic on the strait had increased over the past 72 hours, “despite the elevated threat environment,” the multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Sunday, adding that “U.S.-assisted commercial transits continued uninterrupted.”
It said 89 such transits had been made, below the historical average of 138 vessels a day.
Iran calls for new ‘conflict control unit’ in Lebanon
Last week, Israel and Lebanon signed a framework agreementto end the latest fighting between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group, which began two days after the Iran war started when Hezbollah fired at Israel. Israel has responded with an invasion of southern Lebanon and it has said it will not withdraw until Hezbollah is disarmed.
The agreement did not include Iran or Hezbollah, which has criticized itand rejected calls to disarm.
On Sunday, Iran’s foreign minister again said the U.S. must force Israel to halt attacks and withdraw. Israel occupies around 600 square kilometers (231 square miles) in southern Lebanon, which it says it needs as a security buffer.
Sporadic clashes have continued, and Hezbollah’s leader said Saturday that the group would continue fighting until Israel withdraws from Lebanon.
Key Iranian negotiator and parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said Sunday that a meeting of a new “conflict control unit” formed among Iran, the United States and Lebanon should meet as soon as possible, Iran’s state broadcaster reported.
Two strikes hit southern Lebanon on Sunday morning — one in Taybeh town and the other in the Nabatiyeh area, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency. There was no immediate word on casualties.
Overnight, Hezbollah militants killed an Israeli soldier in Deir Siryan village in southern Lebanon, according to Israel’s military. Hezbollah did not comment.
Israel targets a village in Syria
Israel’s military targeted Abdin village in southern Syria’s Daraa province with artillery shelling Sunday evening, Syrian state media reported. There was no immediate report of casualties.
State news agency SANA earlier reported that residents had blocked the road into the village with stones to prevent Israeli forces from entering it again after they had entered and withdrawn.
Earlier Sunday, Israel’s military said it had killed several armed men in southern Syria but gave no details. There was no statement from Syrian officials.
Israel seized control of a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone in southern Syria in December 2024 following the ouster of former Syrian President Bashar Assad in an insurgent offensive. Israeli officials initially called the move temporary, but more recently they have said they plan to occupy the zone indefinitely.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani has a message for political opponents using him as the new face of the Democratic Party: “Let them.”
Recent primary races in New York turned into a proxy war between progressives, including democratic socialists like Mamdani, and establishment Democratic politicians after candidates endorsed by Mamdani faced off against those endorsed by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. After all three of Mamdani’s endorsements bore fruit, a national spotlight shone on the mayor as a growing influence in the Democratic Party.
Asked on ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday how he felt about Republicans making him the “poster child” for the Democratic Party, Mamdani said, “Let them. We don’t have to ask ourselves what life looks like if a socialist wins. I won last November, and over the course of these last six months, what we’ve delivered for working people are the very things we were told were impossible.”
He touted recent campaign promises he delivered on, including freezing rents for nearly one million rent-stabilized apartments, expanding free child care and filling potholes across the city.
“I think we are seeing a hunger that is not just felt by New Yorkers, but frankly by Americans from coast to coast for a new politics, one that puts working people at the heart of it,” Mamdani told ABC.
Mamdani dismissed criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike. Jeffries, who represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens, said last week that he and the mayor “agree to strongly disagree about some of his endorsements, and he’s got work to do in terms of the conversations that he’s going to have with members of Congress moving forward.” Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said, “The effort to nationalize New York is going to fail.”
Mamdani said he’s focused on the three congressional candidates he has already endorsed: Brad LanderDarializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez. But he didn’t rule out future endorsements outside of New York.
“It’s not just New York City where working people are asking themselves ‘why can’t I afford my rent, why can’t I afford my groceries, why can’t I find enough money in my pocket for childcare no matter how hard I work?,’” Mamdani said.
When asked about a recent manifesto penned by a number of moderate House Democrats and Democratic candidates, promoting capitalism over socialism, Mamdani doubled down on his vision for the party.
“I’m not interested in writing a manifesto, or frankly, in reading one,” the mayor said. “I’m interested in delivering.”
Mamdani also criticized Democrats who continue to make antagonizing Trump the center of their politics rather than working people.
“You’ve got to have something that you are not just willing to stand up for, but that you’re also willing to explain how this is relevant to working people,” he said. “And I think this just comes back to the fact that I’m leading a city that’s the wealthiest city in the wealthiest country in the history of the world. I could end the sentence there and say that life is great for 8.5 million people. But it’s also a city where one in four are living in poverty. And for far too many Americans, those contradictions have become their day to day life.”
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
Despite remaining undefeated in the initial round of the World Cupthe Iran national team is going home after failing to secure enough points to advance. But they do not leave quietly.
Iran’s tumultuous journey in the World Cup has been the subject of widespread attention amid the U.S. war with Iran, with the United States being one of three countries hosting matches. The Iranian team captain, Mehdi Taremi, blamed FIFA, saying, “It’s a disaster World Cup. A disaster.”
“I mean, FIFA, they have to solve every problem here but unfortunately they could not solve it since the beginning,” Taremi said at a press conference Friday after his team drew with Egypt, knocking Iran out of the tournament.
He pointed to the team’s biggest obstacle. “We don’t have our logistics people here. They don’t have a visa,” Taremi said, adding, “We always complain about these things but no one helps. No one.”
The Trump administration denied visas to key Iranian staff and severely restricted players’ travel. The team’s base camp was moved from Arizona to Tijuana, Mexico, where it was required to return immediately after each game.
“How is it possible we always have to travel from Tijuana? We love the people in Tijuana. We love Mexico,” the Iran team captain said, but added, “It’s not fair.”
Throughout the tournament, the Football Federation of Iran lamented the number of issues, threatening to lodge a formal complaint against FIFA. Head coach Amir Ghalenoei called his team the “most oppressed” in the tournament. A few days before Iran’s final match against Egypt in Seattle on Friday, the U.S. loosened travel restrictions to allow players to enter the United States two days before the game.
“The Iran team will still be required to leave the day the match ends,” the Department of Homeland Security said ahead of the match. “The overall security measures and protocol are the same. We remain committed to providing the safest tournament possible for players, staff, and fans alike.”
Still, Iran finished Group G in third place with three points earned after drawing in its matches against Belgium, New Zealandand Egypt. Under FIFA’s new 48-team format, the top eight of third-place teams move on to the next round, but Iran narrowly fell short.
The team initially seemed poised to advance when it was tied with the same amount of points as Algeria, which scored a goal in stoppage-time against Austria Saturday night. But moments later, Austria tied the game, guaranteeing Iran’s elimination.
Off the field, tensions with Iran heightened Friday when the U.S. struck Iran despite signing a memorandum of understanding meant to halt hostilities in order to finalize a peace deal.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
- Johnson says he will send housing bill to Trump on Monday
- GOP infighting threatens critical defense bill
- Johnson says he will send housing bill to Trump on Monday
- Senate Ethics dismisses allegations against Ruben Gallego
- Johnson says he will send housing bill to Trump on Monday
- Rubio, Witkoff to brief Congress on Iran
- Coons released from hospital after car crash caused minor injuries
- US, Iran agree to ‘stand down for now,’ resume peace talks: Official
- Trump: Reflecting Pool will be drained after July 4; algae ‘criminally made’
- Capitol agenda: Red, white and GOP hard-liner blues
-
Politics1 year agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
Politics1 year agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
Uncategorized2 years ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
The Josh Fourrier Show2 years agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
Politics1 year agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship10 months agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words