In Defense of Joyful Protest
In a city where feds tear gas little kids, a street party helps clear the air of oppression
For No Kings 3, Portland put on a day of resistance that felt less like a demonstration and more like a party — an anti-fascist Mardi Gras by the Willamette River.
Residents turned out with a superabundance of creativity that included marching with massive marionettes that lampooned Donald Trump and administration toadies like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Stephen Miller.
There was music everywhere — from brass bands and drumlines to folk singers and funk tunes blasted from speakers on Radio Flyer wagons. People donned inflatable costumes, frog hats, and elaborate papier-mâché ensembles. These protesters dressed up to send a message of defiance to the Trump administration, and an even stronger message to one another: the city is not afraid. And the highest expression of freedom is fierce, unruly joy.
Portland has long been Donald Trump’s punching bag. The abuse of this liberal outpost in the Pacific Northwest goes back to 2020, near the end of Trump’s first term, when he mounted a violent federal invasion that beta-tested the worst of his authoritarian impulses, including deploying irregularly uniformed federal agents to the streets and snatching protesters into unmarked vans.
Trump has again waged violence on Portland during his second term, abusing (largely peaceful) protesters who have been a constant presence at the city’s ICE facility since last summer. This has included federal agents firing so much tear gas outside the ICE building that a public school had to abandon its nearby campus.
Pointing to the chaotic scenes created by his own federal agents, Trump declared last fall that Portland had become a “war zone,” and he attempted to deploy armed troops here, garrisoning California National Guard units at a base on the edge of town. Judges ultimately blocked that deployment. They even enjoined the use of chemical agents at the ICE facility.
Days before that ruling came down, however, the administration got in its last licks, tear-gassing a peaceful union protest that passed near the ICE building. I covered that event for The Contrarian in January, having witnessed small children choking on noxious chemicals — unleashed on them by a government that is supposed to keep them safe.
If there has been any strategy here on Trump’s part — beyond inflicting punishment on what he calls “the enemy within” — it has been to provoke. The administration appears eager to spark a violent or chaotic reaction that could, in turn, justify an even harsher crackdown in the streets.
The Rose City has not taken the bait. Portland protesters turned the tables by laughing in the face of fascism, donning chicken suits and inflatable frog costumes, and refusing to cower before an authoritarian president whose exercise of extra-constitutional power hinges on fear, passivity, and submission.
On Saturday — amid the compounding traumas of unaccountable ICE violence, the illegal, unprovoked war with Iran, an economy rigged for billionaires, and a kakistocracy that is eviscerating core investments in science and social services — the people of Portland proved they can still gather to lift each other up, spread courage, and build the solidarity that’s needed, when the only way out of this morass is to get through it together.
Throughout the day, I captured expressions of this city’s smiling defiance, which included families like Cullen’s at a pregame protest outside Portland’s convention center:
That protest featured a speech by the governor, Tina Kotek, who rolled with a mic outage by picking up a bullhorn.
The local chapter of the protest group Singing Resistance, whose songbook has fast become a national phenomenon, serenaded the crowd. They sang tunes like “No One Is Getting Left Behind This Time”:
As that demonstration morphed into a march toward the day’s central protest meeting site across the river, I ran into a group of senior celebrants, dressed as colonial patriots in tricorn hats. They were blowing on piccolos and parading a gold-bedazzled skeleton “king” in chains.
The march across the river was spearheaded by a drumline led by a woman wearing a cap with a monarch butterfly (the only royalty recognized around these parts).
The march — which stretched the expanse of one of the city’s main bridges — was delightfully queer, with demonstrators in drag standing up for the trans community that has been under relentless assault from the fascist administration:
Across the river, at the main protest site, demonstrators had gathered with enormous papier-mâché marionettes, including one of the president with photo-realistic makeup…
As well as one of his most loathsome deputies; the architect of mass deportation, Stephen Miller.
Demonstrators decorated public infrastructure, unfurling flowing fabric kites and draping banners over bridge onramps:
Music for the day’s main march was provided by the Unpresidented Brass band, the unofficial soundtrack of the local No Kings movement, whose clarinetist is among many Portlanders who have been arrested and hit with trumped up charges for protesting near the ICE facility.
As the afternoon progressed, I tracked down the original Portland Frog, whose hypnotic hip-waggling during a heated faceoff with federal riot cops seemed to baffle the bullies into retreat. This “tactical frivolity” has become a model for the nation, and has inspired thousands to don their own inflatable suits at protests. The OG frog was treated as a folk hero by the crowd, some of whom literally blew him kisses as we spoke:
Mainstream media observers don’t seem to know what to make of the No Kings mass protests, taking a cynical view that turning out in historic numbers somehow isn’t doing enough. That a nationwide street party can’t change anything. They seem sure that, somehow, eight million Americans are doing it wrong.
Horseshit.
If you listen to protest leaders themselves, they know that the mass demonstrations aren’t the endpoint. They are, in fact, waypoints — oases of joy amid a landscape of often crushing despair. Here, the anti-Trump masses meet up to spiritually refresh and refuel, to re-inspire and to cross-pollinate. These demonstrations are where defenders of American democracy can feel the confidence that comes from not being alone. They are where normal folks can plot the hard next steps, until they can gather again — hopefully with new recruits in tow, driven by the shared desire to end the awfulness, buoyed by the solidarity of creative companions.
Take it from Jack Dickinson (no relation), better known as the Portland Chicken, a stalwart of the anti-ICE protests in Portland and a lead defendant in the case that put (at least a temporary) halt to the federal deployment of chemical weapons here.
“After today, don’t wait for No Kings 4.0,” Dickinson told the crowd.
“Events like this are fantastic as exclamation points — to showcase the scale of the resistance,” he continued. But he underlined that the most important activism takes place in daily acts of resistance. “This work is ongoing. This work is continuous,” he said, before exhorting attendees to “continue to find creative ways…to speak out.”
Tim Dickinson is the senior political writer for The Contrarian.
Great photos! Great story! Hope is making a comeback.
Thanks for sharing Tim. Great story!