Performance artist and comedian Alex Stein, whose satirical tirades at Texas city council meetings routinely go viral on social media, made a new appearance at the Richardson, Texas city council on Monday.
Stein dressed in military fatigues and held up a picture of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky while jocosely “recruiting” the Richardson city council for a war against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The statements made by Stein appeared to satirize positions held by corporate media activists and U.S. politicians who lionize Zelensky and agitate for U.S.-enforced no-fly-zones in Ukraine.
Recruiting the Richardson City Council to Enlist in World War 3 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/ICESIm2ULF
— Alex Stein #99 (@alexstein99) March 21, 2022
“My name is Marcus Matthews, I’m a sergeant in the Ukrainian Foreign Legion, and I’m here today to recruit some of you to go fight in the warn in World War Three,” Stein said.
“I ask you to sign up for this man right here,” Stein declared while holding up the photo of Zelensky. “He would do it for you. He loves Richardson, Texas.”
Stein continued, “Are you gonna be with Vladimir Putin? I sure as heck wouldn’t wanna be with Vladimir Putin, I know that. The man’s evil. He’s killing children. He’s killing stray animals, cats with his bombs.”
When one council member appeared to become angered at the speech and ordered Stein to step back behind the podium, the comedian shot back, “You’re a coward. You’re not willing to die for this, but I am. That’s the difference between you and me. You are a coward, and I am a hero.”
Stein’s full performance can be seen below.
Stein told Insider last week that while he originally went to council meetings to deliver serious speeches about current events, he soon realized that “the goofier I got, the more I got them to react. So that’s really what’s effective is you have to get an emotional response. That’s how you kind of trigger somebody.”
