Former NFL punter Chris Kluwe was handcuffed and carried out of a City Council meeting in Southern California on Tuesday after he criticized a proposal to display a plaque referring to Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement at a local library.
Earlier this month, the Huntington Beach Community and Library Services Commission approved plans to install a commemorative plaque to mark the library’s 50th anniversary. The plaque’s design, which needed final approval from the Huntington Beach City Council, included two American flags, the names of current council members and other city leaders and an acrostic reading: “Magical. Alluring. Galvanizing. Adventurous.”
The plaque immediately sparked outrage from the local community, including Kluwe, who has lived in Huntington Beach for 15 years. In a video of Kluwe’s remarks shared online, the former Minnesota Vikings punter shared his view of what Trump’s MAGA movement stands for:
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 stands for hate, and fear, and the idea that we should have a king instead of co-equal branches of government.
Kluwe also called MAGA “profoundly corrupt” and “unmistakably anti-democracy,” before labeling it a “Nazi movement.” As some in the crowd applauded, he added, “You may have replaced a swastika with a red hat, but that is what it is.”
Kluwe ended his remarks by announcing he would “engage in the time-honored American tradition of peaceful civil disobedience” and made his way toward the council members seated on the dais. He was quickly stopped by multiple police officers, handcuffed and physically carried out of the room. The 43-year-old said later on social media that he had been arrested and charged with disrupting an assembly and released from custody four hours later.
“I appreciate everyone’s messages of support, I’m trying to get through all my mentions but as you can imagine, it’s been a bit of a busy day,” Kluwe wrote on social media Thursday. “Remember — peaceful civil disobedience, and no kings, no tyrants. Not ever.”
The former NFL player is no stranger to political activism. During his eight seasons with the Minnesota Vikings, Kluwe was an outspoken supporter of LGBTQ+ rights. In 2012, he filmed several ads for Minnesotans for Equality, a group that organized against a ballot measure that sought to ban same-sex marriage in the state. The punter later alleged he was released by the team in 2013 due to his public support for LGBTQ+ rights. The Vikings organization denied those claims.
After Kluwe’s arrest, the City Council proceeded with the vote and unanimously agreed to install the plaque — but with a slightly modified design that put the words of the acrostic on one line and adding below it an additional phrase that refers to slogans associated with Trump and former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama: “Through hope and change our nation has built back better to the golden era of Making America Great Again!”
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