Dwain Northey (Gen X)

The Great Unicorn/Frog Insurrection of Portland — that dark chapter in American history when the republic teetered on the brink of collapse thanks to a ragtag army of inflatable unicorns, dancing frogs, and people armed with bubble wands. It was the day democracy nearly died — or at least that’s what the Department of Overreaction would have us believe.

According to government officials and cable news prophets of doom, Portland had become the new Raqqa overnight — except instead of ISIS flags, there were pride banners, and instead of AK-47s, there were biodegradable glitter cannons. One can only imagine the horror faced by the federal agents as they bravely confronted a woman in a unicorn costume doing interpretive dance to Lizzo. Truly, these are the heroes of our time.

The footage, of course, told a different story. There were no car bombs, no weapons caches, just a parade of overly caffeinated twenty-somethings twirling in rainbow tutus. But to the talking heads on “serious” news channels, Portland had descended into anarchy. “The city is lost!” they cried, as a slow-motion clip of a frog-costumed protester gently waved a peace sign in the background.

And then came the rhetoric — that sweet, spiced nonsense that makes authoritarian hearts flutter. Government officials took to their podiums, chests puffed and veins throbbing, declaring war on “domestic extremism.” Not the violent kind, mind you. No, they meant the kind that involves papier-mâché puppets and vegan food trucks. Overnight, America was told that dancing unicorns represented a direct threat to the homeland — the pastel face of terror.

To the untrained eye, Portland was merely having another Tuesday — a protest-slash-art-festival-slash-dance-off in the park. But to our brave leaders and their ever-loyal media hype machine, it was a counterterrorism operation. SWAT teams were deployed to handle a group of drummers chanting “Love is love.” One agent later reported, tearfully, that he had been “nearly glitter-bombed.” A near miss, indeed.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon probably held emergency meetings about how to handle the “Unicorn Threat Matrix.” Drone footage surely showed pink inflatables flapping majestically in the wind, each one tagged as a potential insurgent. Somewhere, someone probably updated the national threat level from “mildly annoyed” to “fabulously dangerous.”

But here’s the real kicker: these overblown responses weren’t mistakes — they were the point. Authoritarianism doesn’t begin with tanks in the streets; it starts when someone convinces the public that bubble wands are deadly weapons. By inflating peaceful protest into existential crisis, those in power get to play hero in their own delusional action movie — one where they save America from the tyranny of… interpretive dance.

So yes, the Great Unicorn Uprising may have ended without casualties, but the damage was done. Every glitter-covered sign, every frog costume, every inflatable unicorn was branded as an act of terror. America’s leadership stared into the goofy, inflatable face of dissent — and saw ISIS.

And perhaps that’s the saddest part. When a government becomes so paranoid, so performatively tough, that it can no longer distinguish between a terrorist and a TikTok trend, maybe the real threat isn’t in the streets of Portland at all. Maybe it’s the humorless, power-drunk bureaucracy that can’t tell the difference between a revolution and a rave.

Because when the day comes that we call dancing unicorns an “enemy of the state,” the only thing that’s truly inflated is the government’s ego.