"That is until Donald Trump sent troops to Portland, where ICE agents ran headlong into a 24-year-old in a blow-up frog suit named Seth Todd. Todd met a line of grim ICE agents by dancing and thrusting his hips. An agent sprayed pepper spray directly into his air vent, but he wasn't defeated. Instead, more inflatable frogs joined him in the days that followed, dancing in the streets."
"At a mass protest on downtown's Pennsylvania Avenue, the joking signs outnumbered the serious. There were people in colonial America costumes and in clown costumes; some signs mentioned "6-7." One protester held a sign calling for Tom Cruise to save them; another accused Trump of loving Nickelback. One group carried a Flying Spaghetti Monster banner. There were some old hits-the Handmaid's Tale costumes from the Women's March days, for example, and tiny hands."
Opponents of Donald Trump struggled for a decade to find effective responses to rising right-wing authoritarianism, using earnest demonstrators and more confrontational Antifa-style tactics. Inflatable frog costumes emerged after federal troops were deployed to Portland and ICE agents encountered a 24-year-old named Seth Todd in a blow-up frog suit, who danced and endured a direct pepper-spray attack. More inflatable frogs appeared in subsequent days. The "No Kings" nationwide protests adopted frog absurdity as a prominent tactic. In Washington, D.C., joking signs and costumes—colonial garb, clowns, Handmaid's Tale outfits, Flying Spaghetti Monster banners, and "Aunt Tifa" references—outnumbered solemn messaging, with banners like "I Stand with Frog Dude" and "No Kings, Only Frogs."
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