Minneapolis stood up against a conservative influencer who wanted to make the ongoing siege of Minnesota into content. Jake Lang descended upon the city, eager to use the ongoing violence against these people as a “glorified photo-op.” Instead, the protestors in Minneapolis responded to his insults and aggression swiftly. They got their point across that they wouldn’t have their neighbors defamed by outsiders.
Lang came to Minneapolis hoping to hold a rally in support of ICE. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been illegally kidnapping and detaining residents of the city for weeks now. On the steps of Minneapolis City Hall, Lang proposed to “burn a Quran” as a part of the social media stunt. But, things didn’t go according to plan for the far-right provocateur.
Only a few people showed up to Lang’s rally to back his cause of anti-Islam, anti-Somali, anti-Immigration hate. But, hundreds of counterprotestors made their presence felt as they shouted Lang’s attempts at a speech down. In addition, they chased the rally from it’s planned meeting place. The conservative influencer claims he was injured.
The ICE situation in Minneapolis
Despite those allegations, The Guardian reports that Lang would know quite a bit about brushes with the law. He previously got charged with assaulting a police officer with a baseball bat. (One ponders what made him change his mind about supporting law enforcement from those days…) President Donald Trump granted Lang clemency for those charges. In addition, it appears the professional troll is running for US Senate in Florida.
In their piece, the publication talked to Minneapolis resident Luke Rimington. The protester made it plain, he wants all of these outside ICE agents and the social media content creators capitalizing on this hate out of there. Rimington said, “We’re out here to show Nazis and ICE and DHS and [Trump’s Make America great again movement] you are not welcome in Minneapolis. Stay out of our city, stay out of our state. Go home.”
If you have social media, there’s no telling how many videos you’ve seen of the ICE activity in Minneapolis. The people of the city standing up for their neighbors has been eye-opening for a lot of viewers watching on their screens at home. It’s clear, these folks are fed up and want to put other interlopers on notice.
Who is Jake Lang?
Lang is at his core, a far-right troll who has risen to prominence heckling, Black, Muslim, Jewish, and other minorities whenever it proves politically advantageous to him. Just a few short days before this incident in Minnesota, Lang made waves in Washington D.C. spreading conspiracy theories about Jewish people.
To give readers a small taste of the kind of hate Lang traffics in, there is a video from indie journalist Ford Fischer of Lang saying, “White people in America, you will be replaced, and your children will be Black Muslims if you don’t stand up now.” He would continue, “AIPAC is one of the main components to the people at the head of Hollywood that are brainwashing your children to vote Democrat, to take your guns and to take your freedom. It’s time we fight back.”
(featured image: Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)
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