Jake Lang, a far-right Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, attempted to set a copy of the Quran on fire during an anti-Islam march in Dearborn, Michigan, a city with a large Muslim-American community.
Lang had what appears to be a canister of lighter fluid in his hand as he threw Islam's holy book to the ground during Tuesday’s rally, prompting a counter-protester to reach down and grab it before it was set alight, according to footage of the incident posted to social media by independent journalist Brendan Gutenschwager.
"Don't burn it, man. You can't burn it," the counter-protester said after he was able to take it away.
Lang, who is running for the Senate in the state of Florida after receiving a pardon from President Donald Trump for his involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection, then said he had another copy of the Quran.
Another video posted by Gutenschwager appears to show Lang slapping a package of bacon on the holy book as the same counter-protester tells him: "This is disrespectful."
Pandemonium ensues as a protester pushes the book out of Lang's hands, sparking a melee as another individual grabs the book before it is slapped out of his hands. It is then picked up by an individual who runs it out of the area.
The incidents were part of a wider demonstration orchestrated by Lang that culminated with the Republican candidate going to a Dearborn City Council meeting, telling elected representatives, some of whom are Muslim, that "you guys don't live like we do. We don't want you in our country."
"We will come and eat your shawarma in Somalia, okay?" Lang said, apparently not knowing the Levantine origins of the dish. "We have a right to self-determination. Our founding fathers fought and died for that posterity, for white Americans, and we're being driven out. You come here and you marry four or five women and you outbreed us."
Lang was apparently echoing the great replacement conspiracy theory, a debunked fringe belief that white people are being replaced in Western societies by non-whites. The disproven belief is increasingly common among Trump's MAGA, or Make America Great Again, base.
