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When life gives you fascists, you make a marching band dressed as bananas.
That was the logic of Popular Mobilization, or Pop Mob, a leftist demonstration group that responded to a Proud Boys rally on the Portland waterfront Aug. 17 by organizing a costume party.
Effie Baum, a Pop Mob organizer, says the goal was to "create an atmosphere where a lot of different people could engage" and to interrupt what Baum calls "toxic masculinity riot porn."
The Proud Boys demonstration, which was organized by a Florida talk show host, called for labeling antifascists as a domestic terrorist group. Baum, who is part of the antifascist movement, aimed for a less violent, more absurd outcome.
"We wanted to create a spectacle so that any attempt [the Proud Boys] made to make violent videos would be interrupted and photobombed with something like a banana playing a tuba or an inflatable poop emoji," Baum says.
Here are seven of the best costumes donned by Pop Mob protesters on Saturday.
1. A brass band in banana costumes.
2. Groups of rainbow-maned inflatable unicorns.
3. An "Antifa Waluigi," dressed in telltale purple overalls and white gloves, with a mustached V for Vendetta mask.
4. A tattooed ladybug, with sleeves of ink, a matching polka-dot skirt and wings, and a flower crown of antennae.
5. Multiple massive inflatable poop emojis.
6. Protesters in chef's hats and smocks, dusted with flour, holding signs that read, "White Flour."
7. A young Hufflepuff, brandishing a wand, robe and tie. (The child in the costume was a protester's son.)
Correction: The young protester was a Hufflepuff (not Harry Potter) and he is a protester's son. WW regrets the errors.