"When Donald Trump's administration issued orders to send the National Guard into Portland, Oregon, a person in a frog balloon suit showed up at the city's ICE facility, where protesters had gathered. After the frog humped the air in front of a throng of federal law enforcement - many dressed in head-to-toe camo with military-grade helmets, gas masks, and riot shields - the feds slowly began to retreat. What else could they do?"
"As of writing, this video has over a million views on TikTok and has been reposted and repackaged on that and other platforms. The Frog is ludicrous. The Frog makes no sense. The Frog is a viral symbol of resistance against the Trump regime, and the key to understanding what has happened to discourse in the second Trump presidency."
"The first Trump presidency involved Trump tweeting insane things and the White House desperately trying to act normal in the aftermath. (Toward the end, the White House stopped holding press conferences entirely.) But this second administration, and the new GOP, has leaned into Trump's vibe, resulting in chaotic, incoherent, and abnormal political discourse. The Trump regime and its closest allies oscillate furiously between making Alligator Alcatraz memes and calling for violence against the shadowy forces of antifa domestic terrorism."
An absurd viral moment — a person in a frog balloon suit confronting militarized federal agents — became a million-view symbol of resistance and demonstrated how surreal imagery functions in modern protest. Viral memes now operate as political language, encapsulating ridicule, defiance, and strategic disorientation. The earlier presidency featured erratic presidential statements followed by institutional attempts to normalize them; the newer alignment amplifies and adopts that chaos as style. Political actors oscillate between performative meme-making and aggressive rhetoric, blurring coherent policy debate. This dynamic extends beyond one party, reshaping tone and behavior across American political discourse.
Read at The Verge
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