Depending on your view of flag burning, which the Supreme Court has ruled is “protected speech,” you could also chalk it up to pure stupidity.
The Daily Mail reports that the protester, whose name has been withheld, was leading a cheering crowd in this act of dissent, which sadly has become a popular form of self-expression since the election of Donald Trump as the nation’s next president.
The man inadvertently set fire to his gloves, causing him to panic, which only spread the flame.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
While everyone else around him cheers and screams, his dedication to the mob mentality is shattered as he runs away frantically to shake his gloves off his hand.
Nobody else around seems to notice, except for the cameraman who catches his blooper and follows him.
He then realises another garment has is on fire as well, and has to remove that.
The article goes on to note other “flammable protests this year” that have resulted in unintended injuries:
One man set himself and two other people on fire in July while trying to burn an American flag during a rally outside the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
Gregory Lee Johnson, who famously set fire to an American flag outside the 1984 RNC in protest of Ronald Reagan’s policies, was holding the stars and stripes aloft before the fire quickly spread to his pants.
Just days later, a protester outside the Democratic National Convention accidentally set herself alight after stamping on an American flag that anarchists were burning.
