Sometimes it’s really hard to be living in Minnesota. I’m a Pacific Northwest boy born and bred, I like temperate climates, gentle rains, and an ocean nearby. We woke up this morning to 0°F, 30mph winds, and more and more snow; my wife had to go to work, and I was up at 5 to help her armor up and strap on layers and layers so she can survive the walk to her job (I’m staying home and doing housework and prepping for the next week of classes — I get to stay in the warm).
Sometimes I think we have to be crazy to live here.
But then we see our fellow citizens rise up and do the right thing, and I instead feel like we’re incredibly lucky to live here.
Today, an obnoxious right wing provocateur had scheduled an anti-protest march in Minneapolis. It’s not clear what his goal was, other than to tromp around and declare that he hates Muslims. It was supposed to be a big rally led by this clown, Jake Lang, whose claim to fame is that he was a convicted January 6 rioter who was pardoned by Trump, and has in the past led similar hate rallies in Dearborn, Michigan, as well as Texas and Florida.
His Minnesota rally did not go well for him.
His side was represented by maybe a half-dozen people (also defended by a swarm of city police and a big black war machine with a sonic cannon), while the streets were packed with thousands of people chanting “fuck Nazis” at them.
A group of right-wing anti-Islam protesters arrived at Minneapolis City Hall Saturday morning, facing off against a much larger crowd of counter-protesters.
Jake Lang, a conservative social media influencer, organized the rally downtown. He arrived with several other right-wing protesters, carrying anti-Islam signs and chanting.
The counterprotest was mostly nonconfrontational, but several counter-protesters immediately surged in to meet the far-right group when they arrived.
Some participants yelled back at the far-right protesters, chasing them as they walked around the block in front of City Hall.
The confrontation was brief, with Lang and most of his supporters leaving the scene quickly. Most of the counter-protesters were also dispersing.
That’s right. They ran away. Lang was overwhelmed by Minnesota citizens. He whined a bit while escaping.
You’re being replaced! Do you not understand you’re being replaced!Lang screamed into the microphone, later yelling,We deserve a future for white Americansandsend the Somalis back.
For his trouble, he was punched, like a good Nazi, and walked away bleeding.
He was punched in Michigan, too, although they didn’t draw blood. Lang might want to quit before the escalation continues.
He’s a pathetic loser with a lost cause.
I guess it’s not so bad to be a Minnesotan.
Ahem. Remember those civil war Minnesotans I mentioned? Do not assume they will run away from a fight
(yes I know they got mostly killed but they did not back down.
If fifty thousand Jake Langs with muskets and bayonets cannot do the job, half a dozen will not suffice)
My own replacement theory is that I would love to see these Nazi thugs replaced by ordinary, law-abiding citizens.
Wow! Skimmed the video, impressed by the presenter’s professionalism and insouciance.
Nice civic response, weird liminal superposition in which the USA stands right now.
The population vs the powers-that-be.
I’m hopeful about the outcome, based on this footage.
Seems Minnesota is the last outpost of civilisation in the USA. Bravo you brave people.
At about the 10:00 minute mark one of the cowards tries to walk through the protestors while surrounded by police escorts. It is heartening to see the crowd of typical Minnesotans turn as one and watch him practically fill his pants as he high-tailed it back across the street with his bullhorn and zero police escorts.
No day in which nazis get punched will ever be considered to be a waste.
The koran is not the issue whatever Jake Lang claims. Race is.
At our last protest rally in my area, which has yesterday, the number of protesters was around 800.
The number of counter demonstrators was…one (1).
No one punched her. No one even shot her in the face.
At 20:00 minutes, Jake gets a flying punch to the head while he tries to flee the protest like a coward. Apparently he is being pelted with snowballs, and it appears someone managed to hit him with a water balloon because his hair is wet. Some of the crowd is pursuing while blasting ‘Let it go’ from Frozen.
Jake then proceeds to hide in a hotel and try to escape the jeering crowd of citizens and media by going out the back door.
At 27:43 the protestors who caught him have taken his bulletproof ‘infidel’ vest and perhaps his keys?
I hope he is enjoying MNice. He just got a little bit bloodied and chased by a very angry mob.
NBC News had a very brief report tonight of just the fact that there was a counter-protest in Minneapolis. I don’t recall any mention of what the Jake Lang group was chanting about, that they were few in number, or that they ran away.
billseymour, for context, here’s the FOX news coverage: https://www.fox9.com/news/minneapolis-ice-shooting-latest-jan-16-2026
(Reads rather anodyne, comparatively)
Firefox won’t let me open the video. Could you post a link to it, please? thanks
Never mind! It shows up on the comments page.
rabbitbrush, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQg-G-Ebscg in the OP
[OT] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/17/thousands-of-greenlanders-march-in-protest-of-donald-trumps-threats-of-us-control
Nuuk, the capital, has a total population of 20,000 so if thousands turned out for a protest you are talking a very sizable percentage of the population. Nuuk itself is older than the US, formally established in 1728 though people had lived in the area for centuries. It didn’t get its current name until 1979.