"On the face of it, it was kind of funny, but the caption told an entirely more nuanced story: if you were to show up at the restaurant's downtown location that weekend during the No Kings protest wearing an inflatable costume, you could have a beer for $3, but if you wore a frog costume, you could have a beer for free. It was the most popular post in the history of Lardo's social media accounts."
"This was a much-needed high-profile win for a city whose image, and real material outlook, had been decimated by the now-almost-unbelievable (in retrospect) showdown between antifa protestors and the Portland Police Department that raged across downtown Portland every day for roughly 200 days in late 2020. This was the initial reason that conservatives and Fox News turned Portland's "inferno urban hellscape" into a regular bump on the chyron."
A Portland sandwich shop posted an image offering free or discounted beers to patrons who arrived in inflatable costumes, with frog costumes earning free drinks. Inflatable-costume protesters—three frogs, a chicken, glow-in-the-dark cows and other donated outfits—used humorous theatrics outside ICE offices on the South Waterfront to rebut portrayals of Portland as an urban war zone. The protests provided a rare positive public moment after a lengthy 2020 clash between antifa protesters and the Portland Police Department that produced nightly street battles across downtown for about 200 days. Media conservative outlets amplified images of the unrest, framing the city as chaotic.
Read at The Nation
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