“Canada’s truckers have paralyzed Ottawa and unsettled the country’s politics over vaccine and mask mandates,” Mark Scott reported last week for Politico. “Now Americans want in on the action.”
A convoy from California to Washington D.C. is reportedly set to begin on March 4 for truck drivers who say their freedom has been threatened by Canada’s COVID-19 restrictions. The goal, according to event organizers is to push back against vaccine and mask mandates in the transportation industry.
Some drivers have reportedly begun sharing plans to clog major cities with trucks and other vehicles ahead of the protest on encrypted messaging platforms. Organizers have offered to reimburse gas costs for those who show up in California.
“Our brothers and sisters of the highway succeeded in opening Canadians’ eyes about the unconstitutional mandates and hardships forced onto their people,” convoy organizers said on their Facebook page. “Now it’s time for the citizens of the United States of America to unite and demand restoration of our constitutional rights.”
The California-to-Washington protest is not the only anti-mandate movement to mimic the mobilizations in Canada, according to multiple reports. The movement has been championed by far-right influencers and rightwing politicians including former President Donald Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Politico reported.
“A lot of this has worrying parallels to the build-up to the Jan. 6 riots,” Ciaran O’Connor, an analyst at a think tank monitoring the protests, told Politico. “It’s concerning how this may play out if they get to D.C.”
Story courtesy of Politico.
