When the middle of protests in opposition to immigration enforcement switched just lately to Charlotte, North Carolina, so did the frogs.
Again in October 2025, an agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the company popularly referred to as ICE, deployed pepper spray into the air vent of a relaxed protester’s inflatable frog dress. Video of the incident in Portland, Oregon, temporarily went viral. Frogs and different inflatable costumes changed into a fixture of protests in opposition to Trump management movements in every single place.
As a sociologist who research social actions and political discourse, I knew after I noticed the video that we’d quickly see frogs in every single place at protests.
And certainly, the costumes have visually outstanding fresh occasions from previous anti-Trump demonstrations, softening their public symbol at a time when Republican officers had been calling protesters “violent” and “Antifa people.”
It’s exhausting to be violent in a frog go well with.
Humor is subversive. When used strategically, it might probably lend a hand undermine the legitimacy of even essentially the most tough combatants.
A ‘Trump baby’ inflatable was once utilized in a protest on June 4, 2019, in London in opposition to the state talk over with of President Donald Trump.
Mike Kemp/In Photos by means of Getty Photographs
Playful and probably protecting
Portland activist Seth Todd started protesting in an inflatable frog dress as some way of “looking ridiculous” when federal regulation enforcement ramped up repressive techniques in opposition to his fellow protesters at ICE amenities in October 2025.
Such costumes are interactive, playful, bodily unwieldy and probably protecting. They are able to lend a hand activists seem much less threatening to police, evade facial reputation techniques or even deflect the blows of police batons or rubber bullets.
Dressed in inflatable costumes at demonstrations tests all of the bins for ways that may be extensively imitated: cultural relevance, symbolic energy, accessibility and simple participation. My interviews with activists who used glitter bombing in previous protests printed that light-hearted techniques can make bigger participation by way of attracting beginners who’re cautious of extra confrontational varieties of protest. That is very true when the techniques are simple to undertake – particularly, dressed in inflatable costumes within the weeks main as much as Halloween.
“Protest costumes” at the moment are a class on Amazon.
In contrast to the seasoned activists who had been early adopters, protesters who wore inflatable animal and persona costumes – every so often as a result of frog costumes had offered out – at No Kings protests on Oct. 18 represented a spread of reports and affiliations, together with many first-timers.
“We are middle of the road,” defined one protesting frog in Chicago, “we’re just regular folks who have had enough.”
Jordy Lybeck, Operation Inflation co-founder, organizes inflatable costumes for protesters close to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Oct. 21, 2025, in Portland, Ore.
AP/Jenny Kane
Bears, unicorns, dinos and raccoons
Activists proceed to don frog costumes in team spirit. One team calling itself the Portland Frog Brigade says its purpose is “artfully exercising our First Amendment right to free speech.”
Others created Operation Inflation to assemble and distribute inflatable costumes to Portland protesters.
Simply days after the pepper spray incident, a video circulated appearing other folks out of doors the Portland ICE facility dressed in inflatable endure, unicorn, dinosaur and raccoon costumes, dancing to raucous track in entrance of a line of regulation enforcement officials clad in rise up equipment.
Regardless of the just about literal novelty price of frog costumes, there’s not anything new about any of this.
Inflatables have lengthy performed the most important function in outlandish protest techniques. A big inflatable “Trump chicken” was once put in out of doors the White Area again in 2017, whilst a “Trump baby” blimp hovered over Parliament in London all through a 2018 state talk over with by way of Trump.
All the way through the Sixties, the Bread and Puppet Theater used towering puppets and satirical boulevard performances to protest the Vietnam Struggle and social inequality.
Carnivalesque techniques and clown costumes had been widespread responses to police repression at anti-globalization protests.
The Raging Grannies had been a mainstay at antiwar and antinuclear demonstrations within the early 2000s, simply recognizable with their colourful costumes and witty songs.
And LGBTQ+ rights advocates have thrown pies and glitter-bombed right-wing politicians, whilst additionally staging costumed flash mobs and dance events out of doors the workplaces and houses of outstanding public figures.
Absurdist performances and playful public shows are tough equipment of political dissent, particularly once they stand by contrast to state violence, authoritarianism and human rights abuses.
