Former NFL Player Chris Kluwe Calls on Democrats to Engage in 'Civil Disobedience' After Delivering Scathing Speech Against 'MAGA'

Chris Kluwe, a former professional football player, called upon Democratic lawmakers to engage in "civil disobedience" after being arrested for peacefully protesting a California city's central library decision to approve a plaque with the slogan "MAGA" emblazoned onto it to commemorate their 50th anniversary.

"I want our elected democratic officials to start engaging in civil disobedience," Kluwe said Wednesday in an interview with the Daily Pilot. "People need to be aware that what's going on with this administration is leading us down a really dark path. Right now, no one is willing to step up and do that. So, if I want to ask them to do it, then I have to be willing to do it too."

The Huntington Beach Central Library shared the design for the new plaque with the public, demonstrating the same "MAGA" initialism widely used by Conservatives, but with each letter representing a different word than the slogan popularized by President Donald Trump.

"Magical, Alluring, Galvanizing, and Adventurous," is the full slogan MAGA was supposed to represent on the plaque, as reported by ABC7. The plaque was then unanimously approved by both Huntington Beach Community and the Library Services Commission, despite intense opposition to its design.

Kluwe attended Tuesday night's meeting of the Huntington Beach City Council in order to protest against the plaque's design, having just demonstrated at the Community and Library Services Commission meeting a week earlier for the same reason.

"Unfortunately it's clear that this council does not listen, so instead I'm going to take my time to say what MAGA has stood for these past few weeks. MAGA stands for trying to erase trans people from existence. MAGA stands for resegregation and racism. MAGA stands for censorship and book bans," Kluwe said, before listing off various government offices that had been affected by the Trump administration's mass layoffs over the past month.

Kluwe further expressed his belief that the "Make America Great Again" movement was "explicitly a Nazi movement."

"I will now engage in the time-honored American tradition of peaceful civil disobedience," he told the council members.

The 43-year-old was then arrested by officers after approaching the dais, where the council was seated, and forcibly removed from council chambers.

Kluwe was placed in detention for four hours before being released by the Huntington Beach Police Department, who he praised for their handling of his demonstration. He was cited for disrupting an assembly.

"He wanted his five minutes of fame, and that's what he got," City Council member Gracey Van Der Mark told the Daily Pilot. "The city of Huntington Beach has always been conservative, and they tried to change that, and we're just taking it back to the way it was. If I wanted to live in a liberal city with liberal values, I would have stayed in Los Angeles."

"People are speaking out because that's the American thing to do," Kluwe told the outlet. "You're a public citizen, your voice should be heard. But it's very disheartening when your elected officials are not listening to your voice ... It is profoundly un-American to do what this council is doing, and I think there are a lot of people in this community that get that. At a very visceral level, what we are seeing is not how America is supposed to work."