Beyond Pepe: How the Inflatable Frog Became the Icon of 2025 Anti-Trump Protests

Washington DC: As the second Trump administration enters its final days of 2025, a new and unlikely symbol has dominated the American protest landscape: the inflatable frog. What started as a viral video in October—showing a federal agent pepper-spraying the air intake of an activist’s green suit—has evolved into a nationwide movement known as Operation Inflation.

Until recently, the popularity of Pepe

Protesters in cities like Portland, Los Angeles, and Chicago are increasingly donning bulbous, whimsical costumes to disrupt the “authoritarian script” of federal law enforcement.

According to LM Bogad, a professor at the University of California, Davis and a specialist in performance art, this strategy is known as “tactical frivolity.” By appearing as giant frogs, unicorns, or dinosaurs, demonstrators aim to make militarized police responses look overblown and ridiculous. “It’s hard to stay mad at a guy in a frog costume,” Bogad told reporters.

A man seen wearing a Pepe shirt during the 6 January 2021 riot at Capitol Hill, where Trump supporters attempted to prevent his loss to Joe Biden

The movement reached a fever pitch during the “No Kings” marches in late 2025, where tens of thousands of “inflatable” protesters filled the streets, successfully complicating the administration’s efforts to label the demonstrations as “violent riots.”

The legal system has even taken note. In a notable dissent on October 20, 2025, Judge Susan Graber of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals referenced the protesters’ “well-known penchant for wearing chicken suits [and] inflatable frog costumes.

The costumes have been frequently seen at protests in Washington DC

“She argued that characterizing a city filled with costumed dancers as a “war zone” was not only inaccurate but “absurd.” As 2026 approaches, the “Antifa Frog” has become a potent counter-symbol to the right-wing Pepe meme, signaling a reclamation of the amphibian icon by the left.