The Freedom Convoy In The US Mirror

What I hear from Canada via e-mail about the Freedom Convoy suggests to me that the whole story isn't as cut and dried as its supporters, especially in the US, might believe, and I'm not in a position to comment on it directly. On the other hand, the two countries are close whether either likes it or not, and events like the Freedom Convoy inevitably affect both sides of the border -- how much did a 2020 trucker protest in Washington, illustrated above, inspire the Canadian truckers in 2022?

By thr same token, US Homeland Security is now warning of a potential US Freedom Convoy starting at the Super Bowl and proceeding to Washington next week:

According to senior law enforcement officials and documents obtained by Yahoo News, the warning circulated to law enforcement nationwide on Tuesday by DHS states that the agency “has received reports of a convoy of truckers planning to potentially block roads in major metropolitan cities in the United States in protest of, among other things, vaccine mandates for truck drivers.”

My first teactioni is that, in the same way Putin doesn't need actually to invade Ukraine to weaken Biden, US truckers don't need to spend the time and opportunity cost to blockade Washington. The fear they might emulate the Canadians is enough, and the two countries are different enough that what's so far working brilliantly in Canada -- the truckers making monkeys out of the Mounties and Ottawa police -- won't go over in the US, as sheriffs and police chiefs have consistently put politicians here on notice that they do not enforce temporary executive orders, health regulations, and the like.

But as the Canadian comnmentator Ezra Levant puts it,

Imagine what a trucker rebellion would do in the U.S. Supply chain mess. Inflation. Unemployment. Visual proof of Biden's economic failure on TV every night. Alienating working class voters Biden needs so desperately this November.

Trudeau's mess is creeping over the bridge.

But the truckers are already changing the political climate. Half a dozen Democrat states just ended mask mandates. Democrats are looking for a graceful exit for Fauci.

The fear is enough, and the problem for Biden is the parallelism with Trudeau, whose mess, as Levant puts it, is remarkably similar to Biden's: they're both extremely reluctant to cross their hard-line, anti-working class elitist base, while at the same time they and the public health authorities behind them have lost credibility that any of their measures, ranging from lockdowns to mask mandates to vaccines to curfews to boosters, has been effective against the pandemic. But the mandates have primarily hurt the working-class side of their base, while the elites on both sides of the border continue visibly to flout those same mandates in all too many cases.

Biden's dilemma is of his own making.

President Joe Biden’s coronavirus task force on Wednesday side-stepped decisions by Democrat governors to lift mask mandates across the country, recommending most Americans remain masked in public indoor settings.

“At this time we continue to recommend masking in areas of high and substantial transmission,” Centers for Disease Control Dr. Rochelle Walensky stated during a press briefing. “That’s most of the country right now.”

. . . White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zients and include [sic] Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci focused most of their message on the importance of getting vaccine booster shots to increase immunity to the virus.

Fauci hinted at the likelihood of some people requiring a fourth booster shot.

Given the absurdity of the administration's passive-aggressive stance on maintaining mandates that most of the country is already ignoring, I think the US truckers are in Putin's position: why should Putin take on the risk and unquestionable expense of actually invading Ukraine, when the simple fear of it will drive Biden into forcing concessions on Ukraine and Europe himself? Why should the US truckers take on the risk and opportunity cost of a national freedom convoy when the simple fear of a Canada-like episode is driving Democrat politicians here away from Biden without the need for one?

Indeed, US politicians understand what their law enforcement authorities tell them -- two of Saul Alinsky's rules are "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon," and "A good tactic is one your people enjoy." So far, this hasn't filtered through north of the border -- but peoplle like Biden, Fauci, and Walensky are extremely vulnerable to this as well. Indeed, I would guess that it's wiser heads among the Democrats are the ones who'll need to impress this on Biden's handlers.