“It’s happening whether you like it or not, it’s going to happen.”
QUICK FACTS:
- Multiple U.S. groups are organizing convoys of trucks and other vehicles for this weekend and early next month, imitating the protests against COVID-19 mandates roiling Canada in recent days and disrupting North American supply lines, Newsmax reports.
- An organization called “Convoy to Save America” said on its website that two separate vehicle convoys will join this weekend at the Peace Bridge, a U.S.-Canadian border crossing in Buffalo, New York.
- One of the convoys was to depart New York City Friday and the second from Mount Juliet, Tennessee, on Saturday.
- A variety of U.S. groups are organizing on social media platforms such as Telegram, TikTok, and Facebook, seeking to tap into frustration growing among Americans over COVID-19 mandates, logistics for large convoys across the nation being part of those discussions.
- One of the efforts, dubbed “The People’s Convoy,” has 64,000 followers on Facebook, as it plans a rally in Coachella Valley in Indio, California, on March 4. Truck drivers will then convoy from California and other parts of the country to Washington, D.C., to show their disapproval over mandates, notes Newsmax.
- “It’s happening whether you like it or not, it’s going to happen,” Brian Brase, one of the group’s organizers, said in a recent TikTok post. “It’s not a right issue. It’s not a left issue. It’s not an anti-vax thing. It’s about the constitution and our rights as Americans.” Brase could not be reached immediately for further comments.
WHAT THE GROUP FOUNDERS ARE SAYING:
- Pennie Fay, one of the group’s founders, told Reuters that the convoys will consist of sports utility vehicles and minivans filled with supplies such as water, food, gas cards and blankets for Canadian truck drivers who arrive on the U.S. side, Newsmax notes.
- “This weekend is about the Canadians, about supporting them,” said Fay, who is leaving from Nashville, “while at the same time bringing attention to the fact that we want the mandates gone. Remove them from state to state. We want a free country.”
BACKGROUND:
- In Canada, the trucker protest is entering its third week, according to Newsmax.
- Beginning as a protest over a vaccinate-or-quarantine mandate for cross-border drivers, its scope has expanded to include a more generalized opposition to government rules set up to control the spread of the virus over the past two years.
- Calls for financial help for U.S. and Canadian truckers have been created on fundraising websites, as a campaign on the Christian fundraising site Givesendgo.com has raised more than $8 million for Canadian truckers while another has raised more than $41,000 for truckers in the United States.
