7 Creative Protests We Can Do Today

Fun with chemistry

From the Movie Nice Guys, people protesting bad air quality

Dear Readers,

The movie Nice Guys (leaving Netflix March 31) is playing in the background as I write you this letter. There’s a scene where protestors are sprawled on courthouse steps pretending to be dead, to protest air pollution.

That’s a pretty good protest move if it’s to illustrate numbers of dead or block the way into the building.

I was thinking: what could we do that makes colluders feel embarrassed, evildoers feel like crawling back under their rocks, and the misinformed suddenly wake up?

Creative protests, inventive sabotage

#1 Public oral exams!

Draft a list of moderately hard questions on geopolitical and historical topics! Show up where politicians and other officials will be. Bring a friend to record the interaction. Shout your questions:

“Secretary Hegseth! Secretary Hegseth! What is the main thrust of the still-in-effect Atomic Energy Act of 1954?”

“Director Gabbard! Director Gabbard! You’re from Hawaii. For what stated reasons, whether legitimate or pretense, did the U.S. first move to make Hawaii a state?”

“Senator Schumer, Senator Schumer! When do you think your cooperation with the criminals in the Republican party is going to start paying off?”

#2 Schoolhouse Rock Flash Mobs

Tens of thousands of us agree to meet at public places likely to be populated by a lot of MAGA voters—racetracks, amusement parks, tech startups, medical debt collector headquarters, boring little towns with Dollar Stores and “FUCK BIDEN” painted onto barns, Congress—and we start singing Schoolhouse Rock educational songs about fundamental democratic processes.

#3 Prolonged Sarcasm/Sugary Agreement with the Ridiculous

What if for one week, all Democratic pundits on TV stuck solely to sarcasm?

It’s sort of hard to counter when it’s relentless. It’s hard to argue with someone agreeing with you, even if their agreement makes you squirm with confused embarrassment.

“I really think it’s fine that unqualified people get a chance at this leadership thing! They have business sense. The government “of the people and by the people and for the people” should be of and by and for something other than people for a change! World War II was so long ago, and Afghanistan. So what all those Americans and allies died to keep Europe free from being just overtaken by force? Fuck them, you know? I mean, we can’t keep valuing the same things generation after generation.”

#4 The Silent Treatment

No American who notices these current crimes makes a peep on Fridays UNTIL THIS ENDS. MAGA people will notice that they haven’t heard anything interesting or true or funny all day, their lives becoming gradually even grayer and less fun. Let’s really do this! (We can talk amongst ourselves, but as soon as a suspected MAGA voter enters the room, zip it.)

#5 Mock Game Shows

Like the Price is Right, but sometimes the showcase includes whole governments or the housing sector?

Or, like Wheel of Fortune but if you win the first round, then in the second round you get to buy four letters on every turn. Then, when you win that round (which you inevitably will), on the next round the other contestants don’t get turns at all.

#6 Proof-of-Citizenship Spot Checks on Random Republicans

Trump wants us all to have to prove we’re American citizens when we go to the polls real quick on the way to work to vote in a church basement/school gym being staffed by our elderly neighbors. Do you know where your birth certificate is right now? I do not. I mean, I could probably get my hands on it within 30 minutes because my husband is that good and likes to file, but I probably couldn’t have found it so fast when I was 22.

Isn’t requiring proof of citizenship for voting really just requiring proof of being well-organized, responsible, older, or having moved houses less frequently?

Up with the people, even those with ADHD and apartments that are a mess!

And if you really aren’t a U.S. citizen and you manage (believing that EVERY vote matters) to engineer things so that your name and address are somehow on the voter roll and you arrive at the polls with a credible fake passport or birth certificate (whose job is it going to determine which birth certificates are real, by the way?), haven’t you sort of earned the right to vote for the school budget, county legislators, and U.S. President? That is a downright adorable crime. So slight, so civic-minded. (Which is maybe why it is so rare.)

#7 Mild Poisoning

We’re no Vladimir Putin, so we won’t actually poison anyone all the way to death, but what about full-body hives and diarrhea? If the whole MAGA machinery is doubled over in cis men’s bathrooms, who will be left to tear down our institutions and laws and shout lies into microphones on television?

Ryan Gosling is hot and funny.