Former NFL punter Chris Kluwe was arrested during a public protest at a Huntington Beach City Council meeting after he called Donald Trump’s MAGA movement a “Nazi movement.” Kluwe’s arrest came while he was protesting a proposed library plaque that included the MAGA slogan, an action he saw as deeply problematic.
On Tuesday, Kluwe took the microphone at the meeting to express his concerns. While he supported the idea of a library plaque, he strongly opposed its use of MAGA in the acrostic. “Everyone is in favor of a plaque to celebrate the library, but the vast, vast majority are against including a MAGA acrostic,” Kluwe said.
Kluwe then took the opportunity to speak out about what he believed MAGA represented. “MAGA stands for trying to erase trans people from existence. MAGA stands for resegregation and racism. MAGA stands for censorship and book bans. MAGA stands for firing air traffic controllers while planes are crashing. MAGA stands for firing the people overseeing our nuclear arsenal. MAGA stands for firing military veterans and those serving them at the VA, including canceling research on veteran suicide. MAGA stands for cutting funds to education, including for disabled children.”
“MAGA is profoundly corrupt, unmistakably anti-democracy, and most importantly, MAGA is explicitly a Nazi movement,” Kluwe added. “You may have replaced a swastika with a red hat, but that is what it is.”
After finishing his speech, Kluwe told the audience he would engage in “peaceful civil disobedience,” which he described as a protected form of protest under the First Amendment. However, he was soon escorted by Huntington Beach police officers, handcuffed, and arrested for disrupting the meeting.
Although Kluwe’s arrest was for disrupting the assembly, he emphasized that his actions were a form of public protest, a right protected under the Constitution. Speaking later to the Orange County Register, he explained his motivations: “This was done not with the intention of changing the council’s mind because I don’t think those minds can be changed. It was done so that people who are watching and people who will watch understand that this is important enough to get arrested for. That it’s important to stand up and speak truth to power and to do so in a way that other people can emulate.”
After being held for four hours in police custody, Kluwe was cited and released. Kluwe, who previously played for the Minnesota Vikings and other NFL teams, has always been outspoken on political issues, especially around social justice and LGBTQ rights. He had previously suggested that his political activism was part of the reason he was released by the Vikings in 2014.
“The only thing that changed from Year 8 to when I got cut is that I started speaking out on same-sex rights,” Kluwe told CNN.
In this latest act of protest, Kluwe made it clear that standing up for what he believes in, even at the cost of arrest, was important to him and the public’s understanding of the issues at hand.
