The President wants us to be afraid. Instead, these activists are clowning around with him.
A protester dressed as a frog stands in front of a line of federal law enforcement officers outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building in Portland, Oregon, Monday, October 6, 2025.
(Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
Donald Trump wants the world to think that Portland is hell on earth, so scary and out of control that the National Guard needs to step in and bring peace.
On Wednesday Trump told reporters“The amazing thing is you look at Portland and you see fires everywhere. You see fights, I mean just violence. It's just crazy.” The President went further compare Portland in a post-apocalyptic film that features “bombed cities.” He added: “I don't know what could be worse than Portland. You don't even have sewer anymore. They don't even put in glass. They put plywood on the windows. But most of the retailers are gone.”
Needless to say, this is all a ridiculous lie. The thankless task of correcting Trump has been left to journalists, local officials in Oregon and even a Trump-appointed federal judge. But many Portlanders have taken a more creative approach to combating Trump's dishonesty.
Trump is a sinister buffoon, a menacing clown. His evasive remarks about Portland are motivated by political rancor, but also demonstrate his characteristic detachment from reality. Perhaps deciding it was best to fight fire with fire, Portlanders resorted to a more joyful form of protest: donning animal costumes and dancing in the streets in front of Trump's heavily armed ICE troops. The protests have the dual effect of refuting Trump's fearmongering while showing that he has not intimidated anyone. It's a way to counter Trump's disgusting clowning with giddy clowning.
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Both responses—fact checking and satire—are necessary. Fact-checking won't convince any MAGA cultist, but in the face of authoritarian deception, it remains important to keep as close a record of history as possible. On Wednesday, New York Times reported that documents from the Federal Protective Service, the agency that oversees the security of government buildings, showed that Trump's main claims about Portland were untrue. According to these documents, two days before September 27, when Trump called Portland “devastated by war,” the Federal Protective Service described the protests as “low energy.” Police reports described the protests outside the ICE building as “uneventful.” This is not an apocalyptic hell at all.
According to Time“Internal reports from the week before Mr. Trump sent troops into Portland show that officers generally observed acts of civil disobedience, including protesters standing in front of vehicles in the road, playing loud music and ‘flip the bird,’ and an elderly woman writing in chalk on a wall.”
Loud music, chalk graffiti, and flipping a bird are hardly grounds for military service.
Local officials rightly criticized Trump's fabrications. On Wednesday, Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said“Portland continues to professionally and responsibly ensure public safety, despite statements from out-of-state social media influencers.” Oregon Governor Tina Kotek said she supports Wilson's efforts to “hold the line in response to the lies and aggressive tactics of the Trump administration.” Last Saturday, US District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, blocked about the stationing of National Guard troops in Portland and said the president's comments about the city were “not consistent with the facts.”
But the political battle against Trump's authoritarianism cannot be won with fact-checking. Trump and his cronies are well trained in the art of responding to facts with more lies. Right on cue, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Wilson and Kotek were “covering the terrorism that plagues their streets.”
Trump's lies are a political problem and require a political response. Only popular mobilization will give Trump and his allies pause and make it easier to form a political majority that can defeat his policies.
Fortunately, on the streets of Portland we are seeing a very successful mobilization using satire to ridicule Trump's fear-mongering deceptions.
On Thursday HuffPost reported,
Over the past few days, videos and images of protesters in Portland, Oregon, rallying against the president have been circulating on social media. Donald Trumpsuppressing immigration through the peaceful and playful tactics of wearing inflatable animal costumes and dancing to music in the streets….
“Let's check out the Portland war zone.” one post on X reads near widely circulated video a dinosaur, a unicorn, a raccoon and a bear dancing to Farruko's hit “Pepas”.…
Courtney Vaughn, editor of the Portland Mercury, also posted similar videos for Bluesky Tuesdayin which a unicorn, a bear and a raccoon dance together to a different song.
“The streets in front of the Portland ICE complex are still closed at 8:30 p.m.,” Vaughn captioned her video. “Protesters gathered in an alley. There's a dance party going on.”
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Another very popular video on tiktok showed a man in a plastic frog costume engaging in a staring contest with police.
These silly costumes have serious intentions. Trump painted a dire picture of Portland. A noisy party on the street shows how false his claims are. On an emotional level, they counter Trump's gloom and cultural despair. They don't let Trump dictate the mood of their lives.
As Trump threatens to use the “full force” of the military in Portland, the very act of donning a silly costume and dancing in the street sends a powerful message of defiance. Trump's project is to use fear to crush his political opponents. Portland shows that the way to organize against Trump is to live openly and boldly, without fear.
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