Humor Can Topple Dictators

Written By Leeja Miller

Sources:

Transcript:

Welcome to Why, America? I’m Leeja Miller. Portland, Oregon is the site of increasing hostility from the Trump administration as the regime tries to send in the troops to quell what Trump has described as a war zone. [insert clip of Trump and Mike Johnson and protests]. The regime would have us all believe that every city run by a Democrat is up in flames, and Portland is the latest target of that propaganda campaign. Portland protesters are also offering some of the most hopeful, whimsical responses to the regime we’ve seen yet. Today, in honor of the No Kings rallies happening around the country, I wanted to examine the use of humor, of what’s known as “tactical frivolity” here in the United States as well as in other regions where it has been successfully employed even to topple dictators. It could be that wearing frog costumes and banana suits and making fun of this administration is the best antidote that could lead to its downfall.

AD

Often, the way news outlets report on a story differs depending on the bias of the publication. And it’s hard to know how YOUR own perception of bias influences your interpretation of the news. This headline from the Associated Press caught my eye “Naked bike riders demonstrate against federal troops in ‘quintessentially Portland’ protest” Using the Ground News browser extension, I can see that in the US the Associated Press is considered “left leaning.” To get a fuller picture of the story on all sides of the political spectrum I can click on Full Coverage, which will show me coverage of the same story from publications across the political spectrum.

My partner on today’s video, Ground News, uses 3 independent monitoring organizations to assess the bias rating for each publication. Each news monitoring organization has their own methodology - including editorial reviews, blind bias surveys, independent reviews, and third party research. These are legit INDEPENDENT organizations, but they are limited by the data available to them: their analysis is done in the context of the U.S. political system. Our overton window has shifted so far right that the Associated Press is considered “left leaning.” That tells you a lot about the context within which the media you’re consuming operates. And thanks to Ground News, I get even more context, including how factual each publication is and who owns it, giving me a well-rounded idea of the motivations, biases, and accuracy of the news I’m consuming. Wouldn’t it be great if everyone in America had that much information about the news they consume??

Because depending on where you or your family members get the news, you’re going to get very different takes on the same story.

This is where Ground News comes in - and why I've been using them for over a year. Today’s partner Ground News is an app and website that offers tools to help you critically analyze the news you read, providing context to understand the full picture. I feel better equipped to make sense of what’s happening in the world without being influenced by just one perspective. And listen I’m not the only one who loves Ground News, the Nobel Peace Center even called it "an excellent way to stay informed, avoid echo chambers, and expand your worldview.”

I’m always really impressed with Ground News and genuinely think they’re a great resource. If you want to stay informed on US Politics and more Subscribe through this QR code or our link below at ground dot news slash leeja for 40% off this unlimited access Vantage Plan. It comes out to $5 a month for unlimited access to ALL the features I’ve mentioned. Thanks Ground News!

Since nearly the beginning of this second Trump administration, as its inhumane tactics against immigrants increased, the ICE building in South Portland has been the site of numerous demonstrations against the Trump regime. On September 27th, Trump used those largely peaceful protests as pretext to announce that he would be sending in the National Guard to Portland to enforce immigration policies and put down what he claimed to be a large antifa movement in the area. Antifa has officially been dubbed a terrorist organization by the regime, despite the fact that antifa is not a group, there is no broad organization called “antifa” and the idea of fighting against an imaginary group because they are anti fascist is actually bonkers. But by making up violence and blaming it on antifa and then labeling everyone protesting as members of antifa, that gives the regime more pretext to take dramatic, violent action and claim they’re “fighting terrorists.” It’s hard to know how to counter that rhetoric because the regime has such a huge and successful propaganda armed, propped up by right-wing influencers who seem incredibly willing to spread disinformation in order to get special treatment like invites to round table discussions where they are addressed on a first-name basis by the President of the United States. When the regime has flooded the zone with disinformation and convinced half the country that the people in the streets are violent terrorists intent on bringing anarchy to American cities and ruining their way of life, and that regime increasingly controls most of the institutions in society from universities to the media, how do you counter something that powerful?

Perhaps, it’s by donning a frog costume. Or riding a bicycle naked down the streets. Because calling a man in a chicken suit a violent member of a terrorist organization forces the regime to look absurd. It leads to moments where Mike Johnson calls naked bicyclists “the most threatening thing he’s seen yet.” Which like buddy you need to leave the house a bit more, if that’s the most threatening thing you’ve seen yet. It makes the absurdity so obvious that it is laughable. It makes obvious the things that protesters hope would be obvious–that they are non-violent, that they are not terrorists–but that can easily be twisted by propaganda. The brutality of the regime becomes undeniable when the violence is not happening against a person wearing all black with a face mask and a protest sign but instead against an old man riding an inflatable ostrich, or a naked guy playing the bagpipes on his unicycle, or a bubble blowing frog, or a group menacingly dancing the cha-cha slide. And with Spirit Halloweens having setup shop in a failed big box storefront near you this holiday season, access to absurd costumes is widespread just in time for the No Kings rallies and the ongoing protests at ICE facilities across the country.

And these optics matter. Taking to the streets matters. Showing sustained discontent matters. There are many aspects of resistance that are necessary to be successful, and everyone plays a role, whether that’s at protests, in spreading news and information gathering, in organizing, in funding, daily support for activists, and more. EVERYONE has skills that can play a role in a resistance movement, but the very public use of humor in the streets has a long history of successfully undermining scary, violent regimes. But there are things we can learn about the successes and failures of past movements to ensure that the whimsy of the protests in Portland and increasingly across the US isn’t just a passing fluke but instead, hopefully, a sign of promising resistance work to come. And yes humor has actually toppled dictators.

There are many examples to pull from but I want to focus on the movement that toppled Yugozlavian President Slobodan Milosevic in October, 2000 after 13 years of brutal rule. The movement was called Otpor, which is Serbian for Resistance. According to Otpor activist Milja Javanovic, quote “Otpor was founded in October 1998 in response to two laws passed by the Serbian parliament. One of these was a new media law designed to silence independent media. The law allowed for immediate action, including closure and fines against media outlets that broadcasted or published anything that might undermine Serbia’s constitutional order or integrity. The other was a law that completely violated our tradition of academic freedom, giving

government-appointed deans the power to arbitrarily dismiss professors or order changes to the curriculum.” Sound familiar? It was this undermining of the free press and academic freedom that led a group of young students to organize. These students had experience from past protest movements and called on their friends who they knew shared their sentiments. It started as a group of 20 and grew to 100 by the end of 1998. According to Javanovich, the goal was to create a movement, not another political party, one that was focused on action instead of on political infighting or clout seeking. As such, the movement didn’t have a hierarchy, instead it was run by a board of activists, none of whom acted as de facto leader or as spokesperson. That way, the regime had no way of attacking or smearing individuals and attributing that smear campaign to the entire group. They were also adamant that the group would not be associated with any political party, but instead would be open to anyone, left or right, who agreed that Milosevic had to go. This would allow for a broader appeal and a larger mass movement to achieve their central goal which was to force Milosevic to hold early elections and then to defeat him when they took place. Quote “What we wanted above all was to show Milosevic that we had strength in numbers and that he would have to deal with us as a mass movement.” They created an easy to recognize, highly symbolic logo, the clenched fist, in black on white or white on black, right from the beginning. This was an especially potent symbol because it was a play on the communist red clenched fist symbolism that Milosevic used in his own political propaganda. They began a spraypainting campaign and within weeks the image of the clenched fist was everywhere across the city of Belgrade. While the people initially disapproved of the spraypainting, and were often angered when the spraypainting veered into provocative slogans, the name of the movement, of Otpor, eventually caught on and people became interested in what this movement was. Then their members started getting arrested and brutalized by the police, leading to nationwide name recognition of the Otpor movement. It also won over the public onto the side of Otpor as their moms and grandmas and friends and siblings began to see these young university students getting beat up by the police.

One of the most successful tactics that Otpor used was humor. Quote “We knew people were afraid of Milosevic and afraid of the police. The best way to break through that fear and undermine Milosevic’s power was to employ humor to make him look stupid, small, and insignificant.” Using humor is a significant way to undermine the authority of a regime, and that is powerful. One activist told New York Magazine at the time quote “We focused on breaking Milosevic's authority, on ways to communicate to dissatisfied people that they are the majority and that the regime could only dig itself into a deeper hole through repression. We learned that fear is a powerful but vulnerable weapon because it disappears far faster than you can recreate it."

According to that same article, quote “Throughout Serbia, activists were trained in how to play hide-and-seek with the police, how to respond to interrogation, how to develop a message in posters and pamphleteering, how to transfer fear from the population into the regime itself and how to identify and begin to infiltrate the “pillars of support” in the police and elsewhere.” Training in nonviolent resistance was essential so that everyone on the ground understood not only the demands they were making but also the tactics they were using and how to successfully implement them in a way that would actually further their goals.

Their main tactics were targeted campaigns–events and demonstrations meant to send a specific message. These weren’t simply protests in the streets but instead events with a specific schtick that was often based around satire or humor. One of their first events was called A dinar for a change, where Otpor raised money and people would pay one dinar for a chance to punch Milosevic’s picture painted on a barrel. In 1999 they held a birthday party for Milosevic where they wrote him a birthday card and gave him gifts like handcuffs and a one-way ticket to The Hague. According to Janovic quote “We presented him with an ironic birthday card, thanking him for robbing us of our childhood and plunging our region into war. ‘May you celebrate the next one with your nearest and dearest on a deserved holiday in The Hague’ we said.” They also led a successful campaign using the words “He’s Finished!” and plastering them across his face on campaign signs.

In addition to loads of merch, stickers, tshirts, leaflets, tv commercials [insert clip] and their targeted campaigns and events, they also spread into even the tiniest villages, going door to door to get out the vote after Milosevic called for new elections. At its peak, the Otpor movement had around 80,000 members, and over 71% of the voting age population turned out to vote in the special elections. Milosevic was defeated. When he refused to cede power, miners at the Kolubara mines which produced most of Serbia’s electricity began a strike, and the Otpor supporters took to the streets of Belgrade chanting the “He’s Finished” slogan. The parliament building was set ablaze and a wheel loader was rammed into the state media building. Milosevic stepped down that same day.

It was later revealed that, what do ya know, the United States actually played a role in the overthrow of Milosevic, funnelling millions of dollars into the Otpor movement, which explains how a few thousand college students had the funds to print literal tons of signage and merch and recruit so many activists across the entire country. The US even provided training, flying 20 Otpor leaders to Budapest and holding a 4-day seminar at the Hilton hotel there led by a retired US army colonel named Robert Helvey who taught them techniques of non-violent resistance. According to the New York Times Magazine quote “Otpor activists listened as Helvey dissected what he called the "pillars of support" of the regime. These naturally included the police, the army and the news media, but also the more intangible force of Milosevic's "authority." That is, his capacity to give orders and be obeyed.” It was that authority that Otpor activists sought to undermine with their targeted campaigns. A US film was even made about them, narrated by Martin Sheen, called Bringing Down a Dictator [insert clip]. I don’t think the US’s involvement should completely undermine the work of the activists on the ground, it just is an interesting thing to point out how the US government is happy to support activists abroad but quick to condemn them on US soil. That fact is not new with this Trump regime, which becomes very obvious when we turn to uses of tactical frivolity employed here at home, with admittedly less success than the Otpor movement.

Probably the most well-known group of activists that employed tactical frivolity as a strategy was the Yippies, or YIP, the Youth International Party, whose most famous founder was probably Abbie Hoffman who wrote Steal This Book and was one of the Chicago 8 who stood trial for inciting a riot outside of the 1968 Democratic National Convention–a trial that was largely dismissed as political theater given the overly violent response to peaceful protestors from the Chicago police. The Yippies helped organize the demonstrations at the 1968 DNC convention. They were a political arm of the counterculture movement, combining hippie notions of free love and free drugs, with the growing anti-Vietnam war sentiment as well as socialist ideas, including the creation of alternative institutions like food co-ops, underground newspapers, pirate radio, free stores, and more. The socialist utopia their parents generation were taught to fear. They were deeply enmeshed with pop culture and drew on pop culture references in their activism–rock n roll, Andy Warhol, etc. Much like the Otpor movement that came after them, they staged “happenings” or major events meant to send a message, utilizing humor and tactical frivolity in the process. Specifically, they loved a good guerilla theater moment. Think flash mobs of the 2010s but with a political message and less dancey more acting out scenes. In 1967 Hoffman and a group of Yippies got into a tour of the New York stock exchange and once they got to the balcony overlooking the trading floor they threw down a mix of real and fake dollar bills while laughing maniacally. That same year, they participated the 1967 March on the Pentagon to protest the Vietnam War. Ahead of the event, the Yippies applied for a permit to levitate the Pentagon 300 feet. Like submitted the official paperwork earnestly requesting a permit to be allowed to levitate the Pentagon building. Authorities eventually agreed they could levitate the Pentagon, but only 3 feet, not 300. The absurdity only continued on the day of the event, when about 50,000 protestors, led by Abbie Hoffman and Allen Ginsburg, among others, marched to the Pentagon and starting chanting “ancient Aramaic exorcism rites” according to Time magazine, while standing in a circle around the building. They were attempting to exorcise the Pentagon building and thereby end the war. This was an elaborate setup, they had done research ahead of time on proper exorcism and levitation rituals, wrote a special chant for it, and surrounded the Pentagon with cornmeal, among other things. They were met by several thousand troops and US marshals who attacked them with tear gas and arrested them, and their protest was covered by Time Magazine and the nightly news, including the absurd stunt of trying to levitate the pentagon and being met with thousands of troops.

And ahead of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the Yippies announced they had their own nominee for president–Pigasus J. Pig, or Pigasus the Immortal, a 145 pound pig. During the nomination demonstration, held outside the Chicago Civic Center, 10 armed policemen arrested the yippies as well as Pigasus J Pig, who they put in the back of a police car and drove to the Chicago Anti-Cruelty Society. The pig, that is, the men went to jail. The event was eclipsed by the violence that occurred a few days later during the Democratic National Convention. During Nixon’s inauguration ceremony, the yippies held their own ceremony which they called an in-hog-uration ceremony for President Pigasus. While the actions of the Yippies didn’t topple a dictator, they did gain national attention especially for the goals of their movement and for ending the Vietnam War.

And probably my favorite example of a group that used tactical frivolity, political theater, and what’s called “culture jamming”, a tactic used in the 90s to take everyday capitalist items like billboards and turn them into a statement, was a movement in the 90s and early 2000s in the US called Billionaires for Bush. To protest against the influence of money in politics, they ran a campaign in 2000 called Bush (or Gore) 2000, with an Elephant/Donkey hybrid logo and the motto “Because Economic Inequality Is Not Growing Fast Enough.” During the 2000 Democratic National Convention they attempted to hand deliver thank you cards to praise the major corporations like Verizon and Fidelity Investments that were sponsoring the event. And at the 2000 Republican National Convention they organized a Million Billionaires March which they described as “a humanitarian effort to end the isolation of the very wealthy”, held a “vigil for corporate welfare,” auctioned off corporate advertising rights under the Liberty Bell, and formed a circle around the Federal Reserve Building to levitate the interest rate. They held an event on George Bush’s birthday to thank him for their tax cuts. They showed up at peace rallies and anti-Bush protests as “counter protestors” and did cross-country limousine tours and filed a petition to allow oil drilling at the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. They had a website with a list of actions, of their political platform, of their chants and slogans, and more.

During the 2004 campaign, demonstrators showed up outside a Long Island fundraiser for Bush to show their support, wearing tuxedos, top hats, and evening gowns, and holding posters that said “Leave No Billionaire Behind” and “Corporations Are People Too.” At their peak, their movement was incredibly small. Their largest event was their Million Billionaires March at the 2004 Democratic National Convention for which 150 marchers showed up and presented a fake check made out in the amount of “whatever it takes.” Despite the small size, I found this group most inspiring I think because it uses humor that still feels relevant today and that was really smart. And I think, no matter the size or “success” of these movements, there are things we can take from all of them and apply to the present moment.

Y’all are always asking me what can we do, and I think this gives us a window into some strategies and tactics. So let’s just break down what these movements had in common that could be applied today, and how to do so successfully. I’m not an organizer and there are organizers, through 50501 and other groups, that are providing comprehensive trainings that you should absolutely go to ahead of any protest, like the No Kings rally today and in the future. But when I was a college activist some of the central training I received was around strategy vs tactics. So just the fundamental basics are that you need to have clearly articulable goals that everyone in your coalition can get behind, you have one or a few overarching strategies to achieve those goals, and then within those strategies are individual tactics you use to further your strategies. I see tactical frivolity as one strategy and the individual campaigns or events as tactics within the larger strategy.

So here are the commonalities I see across these movements: they tend to be run by young people and university students. This makes sense–as you get older you start accumulating things like money or possessions or a family, which makes it feel like you have a hell of a lot more to lose. You’re distracted with a career and kids, etc., and you’re often socially siloed at your job and among the friends you probably made back when you were in college. When you’re young, you have a fuck of a lot less to lose, your brain isn’t fully developed yet so you’re much more willing to take risks, and if you’re in a university setting you’re naturally just interacting with other likely like-minded people which just makes organizing that much easier. That’s not to say people outside of university students can’t get involved, I think it’s just important to look at the conditions that allow for university students to be better at organizing and figure out how to apply that to your own life: they are willing to take risks and they are constantly socializing with other like-minded people.

Another commonality is that each movement had some sort of symbol or logo. I think the Otpor movement did this best with their very simple clenched fist symbol, in a single color, that could easily be printed onto a spray painting stencil and t shirts and stickers etc. It was also powerful because it played on iconography that Milosevic used to get into power, communist symbolism that they co-opted as their own. I don’t think a raised fist would do well in the United States today given how engrained anti-communism is in our culture. It is also already being used by the BLM movement. If the goal is to build a coalition to take down Trump and build something back that’s better, it needs to bring together people who don’t necessarily agree on everything, and using Trump’s own imagery against him could be really powerful–something with a red hat, the American flag, or a play on the Make America Great Again theme, all might work. Something simple that can be easily reprinted and disseminated so everyone knows what it means.

Another commonality is that these movements are generally not hierarchical–there is no single leader that can be taken down or scapegoated, when one is arrested 15 more appear, it is highly decentralized which makes it stronger and less susceptible to shock or blind populism.

Another commonality is they are tuned into pop culture of the moment and able to use celebrity to make their point–either by having celebrities join the movement and raise visibility or using pop culture to create a bigger statement. It’s like if brat girl summer actually meant something instead of just being coopted by the Harris campaign to make fan edits of Kamala.

Every movement made strong use of campaigns and events to further their message–they were very focused on taking ACTION more than on ideological purity or theory. They showed up, imperfectly, in person everywhere with new clever demonstrations or campaigns and they relentlessly pushed those campaigns so people noticed.

Another commonality is that the movements were generally non-violent. That is not to say that violence is never the answer, that’s not what I’m saying here, like I said there can be and should be more than one strategy to reach an end goal, but if we’re talking tactical frivolity, non-violence is a key element. The point is to de-escalate tensions through absurdity.

Hand in hand with that, a final commonality I have found is the use of media to disseminate their message. The optics are deeply important for tactical frivolity–it is meant to make the oppressor look bad, so that when your conservative granny turns on the nightly news and sees national guardsmen beating blow up frogs she might pause and think well that doesn’t seem right. It is also meant to be a spectacle in order to attract the media attention necessary to get your message out. That connection to the media and making sure they are made aware of the campaign, of the event, and of the organization is deeply important.

And finally, something that I think set Otpor apart from the Yippies and the Billionaires for Bush movements, you have to have clearly defined and easy to articulate goals. Otpor wanted a special election to vote Milosevic out of power. They wanted Milosevic gone. That one simple goal meant they could work with people across ideological lines because, much like Trump, Milosevic wasn’t popular. Billionaires for Bush had really clever tactics but at least from what I could see of the archived version of their website they didn’t have any demands or clear goals behind their tactics other than raising awareness, which maybe that was their sole goal but I think in today’s America we need something a bit loftier. Though I would say most people probably would agree that just getting Trump out of power feels inadequate, because who’s to say the power vacuum won’t be filled by someone similar or worse. So I’m not going to say I have the answer as to what the movement’s goals should be, that needs to be decided by a coalition of groups wide enough to appeal to a large portion of the population. And it needs to be decided by people willing to come together to see those goals through, even if they don’t necessarily ideologically agree on everything. Like perhaps you’re anti-capitalist and think the whole system needs to fall but you join the coalition to push for an end to Trump and election of someone willing to listen to your coalition in order to at least stop this regime and try to bring an end to fascism in the country, with the hope of then continuing to push your ideals after the goals of that larger coalition have been achieved. Again, I’m not an organizer my role isn’t to make this happen I’m just here to disseminate the information and provide the legal insight where I can. I think Zohran Mamdani’s campaign is an interesting case study because he has managed to create easy to articulate goals to where most New Yorkers know his major platform points–free buses and childcare, and a rent freeze, funded by a 2% increase on taxes for the top 1% and an increase on corporate tax from 7% to match New Jersey’s 11%. You know, we can dream of an anti-capitalist egalitarian utopia while also recognizing what we actually have to work with today and figuring out ways to make peoples’ lives more comfortable so they might actually have a chance to thrive, which is not the case for the vast majority of people in this country right now. And most people are not foaming at the mouth for revolution they just wish rent wasn’t so damn high and they weren’t living on credit cards.

And so I hope tactical frivolity really takes off, I hope to see it today at the No Kings rallies across the country, and I also hope that it can be used as a strategy to further clearly articulated goals from a nationwide coalition. Showing up to protest is important, but organizing is deeply important, too. Like I said, 50501 has some great trainings, Indivisible has local chapters and does great work as well. I think I struggle here because we are all so siloed in our special interests and so it’s hard to point to a single national organization that is utilizing the strategies and tactics I’ve outlined in this video in a way that could create a national movement. So please in the comments leave your suggestions if I’ve overlooked a national organization doing what I’ve outlined. And if you have a question you’d like me to answer in a future video, comment QUESTION in all caps along with your question so that I can see it from amongst the trolls.

Thank you to my multi-platinum patrons Marc, Sarah Shelby, Art, David, L’etranger (Lukus), Thomas Johnson, and Tay. Your generosity makes this channel what it is, so thank you!

And if you liked this episode, you’ll like the one from Monday about how the Supreme Court is about to gut the voting rights act again

Leeja Miller
Next

Can Republicans Just Refuse To Seat Elected Democrats?