President Trump’s opponents — from street protesters to elected officials — are increasingly adopting a different strategy to try to push back against his agenda: humor and ridicule.
But there is nothing light-hearted about their efforts.
Instead, the sarcastic or absurd counterpoint is intended to undermine Trump’s preferred self-image of strength and instead make him and his allies appear fundamentally ridiculous.
In recent days, Portland’s “Freedom Frog” – a protester dressed in a giant frog costume – has taunted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in the city, garnering huge social media attention and inspiring other costumed fellows, frogs and others to join him.
Separately, dancing protesters have mocked ICE and other law enforcement personnel by adopting the sexually suggestive slogan “Arrest me, daddy” and recording their efforts — a tactic that seems to be taking hold especially on TikTok.
Among elected officials, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) this week took aim at White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
Ocasio-Cortez said Miller “seems like, [4 feet, 10 inches]and further argued that the Trump aide demonstrated “insecure masculinity.”
More pointedly, the progressive congresswoman from New York urged her supporters that the best way to deal with such statistics is to “laugh at them.”
As a result, a TV segment began in which Fox News’ Laura Ingraham invited Miller to respond to Ocasio-Cortez’s taunts.
He complained that Ocasio-Cortez was “a train wreck”; Said of his quip about his height that “We knew his brain didn’t work, now we know his eyes don’t work”; And claimed that he is actually 5 feet 10 inches tall.
Ocasio-Cortez then posted on social media the portion of Miller’s Fox interview where her original comments were shown.
“I can’t believe they aired this and heard him live,” the Democrat wrote, adding a laughing emoji and concluding: “I’m crying.”
Amidst all this, California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) has continued his recent trend of mimicking Trump’s hyperbolic and self-aggrandizing style on social media.
A social media post Friday from Newsom’s press office began: “Happy Birthday, Gavin C. Newsom, many say America’s favorite, most handsome and possibly most important Governor!!”
Like Ocasio-Cortez, Newsom is also considered a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028.
The sustained, uneven efforts to mock Trump are boosting Democratic morale even amid serious concern over the president’s actions. And it’s paying political dividends, at least for Newsom, who has surged in some polls of potential 2028 candidates since beginning his stream of Trump-impersonating posts.
Some supporters of the absurdist street theater being performed by protesters believe it can serve an important purpose, especially against a figure like Trump, who they believe is headed down an authoritarian path.
They point to historical examples where satire was used to weaken or at least destabilize dangerous political figures.
This trend extends at least as far as Charlie Chaplin, who mocked Adolf Hitler in his 1940 satire “The Great Dictator”.
MSNBC’s Jen Psaki, most recently former White House press secretary under former President Biden reminded your audience A satirical Russian puppet show, “Kukli”, which poked fun at Vladimir Putin – apparently with some effect, as it was soon removed from the air under pressure from the Kremlin.
last year, Writing in Rolling Stone magazineProgressive strategist Anat Schenker-Osorio notes with approval the success achieved in the Balkans at the turn of the century by a group called Otpor, which sought to undermine Serbian authoritarian leader Slobodan Milosevic by mocking him.
Trump’s opponents have been urging their allies to make fun of the president for some time.
Last year, conservative lawyer and Trump critic George Conway told The Atlantic, “The best way to hit the soft underbelly of his psychological disorders is to make fun of him. He can’t stand jokes. It’s the thing that makes him the craziest, and making fun of him diminishes him.”
“That’s why his followers follow him,” Conway said. [is] They think he is a strong man. And he is not.”
A 2020 New York Times op-ed by Nicholas Kristof was titled “To Beat Trump, Mock Him” and featured a photo of a cartoonish Trump blimp flown by protesters several times during his first term.
“I’m disappointed by the lack of traction that serious criticisms of Trump are getting, and I think it’s useful to learn the lessons of how people abroad challenge authoritarians,” Kristof wrote, again citing Russian and Serbian examples, as well as other “strong” figures expressing anger toward cartoonists who Made fun of them.
Trump, for whom masculinity is central to his public persona, will never openly admit that he is bothered or hurt by the ridicule. But he has often displayed thin reactions.
The most obvious piece of evidence is his frequent rhetoric against TV hosts who have mocked him, including Stephen Colbert (“Very boring”), Jimmy Kimmel (“Zero talent”), Jon Stewart (“Highly exaggerated”) and Seth Meyers (“No ratings, talent or intelligence”).
Trump celebrated the announcement that Colbert’s “Late Show” would be canceled by CBS earlier this year, and he lamented Kimmel’s return after he was briefly pulled from the airwaves last month by a combination of ABC, Nexstar and Sinclair. Nexstar is the corporate owner of The Hill.
However, it is not just Trump who may react angrily. The Portland Freedom Frog became prominent in part because a federal agent was recorded appears to be spraying some chemical On a vent in the dress.
Anti-Trump forces hope such a reaction will show how effective mockery can be.
One way or another, satire is a serious business these days.
The Memo is a column reported by Niall Stannage.
