Missourians from across the state took to highway overpasses this week to show their support for a rolling temper tantrum of hundreds of flag-covered vehicles, whose main objective appeared to be to piss off as many people as possible by creating huge traffic jams in protest of COVID restrictions, which largely no longer exist.
Mirroring the recent trucker protests in Canada, the People’s Convoy, as it is suspiciously named (Marxism much?) began its long journey from Barstow, California to Washington, D.C. on February 23, passing through Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma before arriving to the Show Me State – which has no statewide vaccine or mask mandates in place – on Monday.
SEE ALSO: The ‘People’s Convoy’ Is a Rolling Temper Tantrum of Grievance [PHOTOS]
Yesterday the group got to St. Louis County, just one day after the mask mandate was lifted there. Notably, the convoy chose to snake around the city of St. Louis itself, which is one of the only jurisdictions in the state that still has mask requirements (although they'll expire later this week).
But even in the face of easing restrictions and an utter lack of tyranny to bravely defy, the vehicular armada has pressed forth with its protest, hauling truckloads of grievance and conspiratorial thinking toward our nation’s capital. The group’s demands are simple enough, and written on its website in bold font and all caps: “WE DEMAND THE DECLARATION OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY CONCERNING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC BE LIFTED IMMEDIATELY AND OUR CHERISHED CONSTITUTION REIGN SUPREME.”
A fundraiser for the People's Convoy has raised more than $1.5 million in the short time it's been active, and like-minded folks have huddled for hours on overpasses across the country to enjoy the apparently fun experience of being honked at a lot. In Missouri, crowds of well-wishers were gathered at nearly every I-44 overpass from St. Clair to I-270, some arriving as early as 7 a.m. for the privilege.
Whole families dotted the side of the highway, standing in between cranes hoisting massive flags and even a half-man, half-tree “Merferd” sculpture by St. Louis “treetoons” artist Phil Berwick.
But the best place for People’s Convoy supporters to view a parade of semis was the obvious one: the original Bigfoot monster truck in Pacific. There, roughly a dozen people posed for a cameraman, holding aloft American flags and Gadsden flags and one rather ominous, literal red flag that read “TRUMP 2024 THE REVENGE TOUR.” The group was all smiles as anticipation built for the main event.
One attendee had brought a homemade sign whose message seemed to succinctly sum up the thoughts of the supporters: “Take A Stand Now Missouri.”
At the Bowles overpass in Fenton, a mostly-white group of 40 to 50 mostly older people gathered early Tuesday morning to wave at the People’s Convoy as it passed, with some visibly struggling to hold their American flags aloft against the relentless tyranny of the wind.
Two young children were aided by their parents in hoisting a banner that read “Don’t Give Up the Ship,” and one particularly fashionable woman wore a fleece American flag bodysuit. All told, the group appeared as a veritable orgy of red, white and blue – and, of course, COVID skepticism.
As the bridge noticeably shook beneath our feet, a woman named Jennifer Anderson, who has family in Missouri, told us she’d traveled all the way from Corpus Christi, Texas to join the convoy. “At first I was going to meet up with them in California,” she said, “but then I looked at a map and decided I’d rather come here and see my mom.”
Anderson was a colorful character, wearing pink boots and pink sunglasses, with her hair dyed an array of hues, mostly purple. She owns a smoke shop in Corpus Christi, and holds dual citizenship in the U.S. and Canada. She was amused that there is a city in Missouri called Cuba, where the convoy had stopped the night prior, and she shared that she’d actually traveled to the country of Cuba some years back, where she’d gotten a tattoo reading “Your Name” tattooed across her ass. “It was a neat trip,” she said.
Anderson had watched the trucker protests that rocked our northern neighbor for weeks with great interest, she said, and claimed that she and her 75-year-old boyfriend eat out maskless all the time, neither vaccinated, and are both “healthy as a horse.”
“Why would you want to put a man-made chemical in your body?” she inquired, her dyed locks blowing in the wind.
Nearby, a woman with long gray hair and a sign that read “We Support Our Truckers” agreed.
“I’ve never even gotten a flu shot and I was a teacher for years, and I was fine,” she said. “I didn’t get this shot either. I did get COVID though.”
Anderson shared her thoughts about a recent study out of Ontario suggesting that CBD may offer some protection against COVID. She wondered why the government would push vaccines when, in her opinion, the cannabis product would work just fine.
“I got a fucking head shop,” she said. “This is why I’m not getting sick.”
Anderson said she planned to travel with the convoy all the way to D.C. When asked what she intended to do once she got there, she said she wasn’t sure. She hoped to visit her sons in Canada afterward, but she didn’t know if it would be possible due to her refusal to get vaccinated.
“Because of these mandates, because of all this COVID shit, I haven’t seen my kids in two years,” she explained. “When I get to the border I have no idea if they’re gonna let me over.”
In the run-up to the start of the American convoys, the Canadian truckers were the darlings of right-wing media and Republican politicians alike. In mid-February, Fox News host Tucker Carlson, on his wholly unwatchable TV show, lent his support to the protests, claiming: “The Canadian trucker convoy is the single most successful human rights protest in a generation.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) went a step further, saying he hoped that the truckers would come here and "clog up cities" across the U.S. "Peaceful protest, clog things up, make people think about the mandates," he said.
Even former President Donald Trump got in on the action, calling Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a “far-left lunatic” in an early February statement of support for the convoys. He then doubled down at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, claiming, “You're either with the peaceful truckers or you're with the left-wing fascists.”
But outside of the right-wing fever swamps, interest has begun to wane significantly. In the week since the People’s Convoy departed California, the world has changed dramatically in ways that have nothing to do with COVID or mask mandates. Just one day after the show got on the road, Russian forces launched an invasion of Ukraine, immediately throwing Europe into geopolitical turmoil and bringing urgent fears of a conflict between the U.S. and Russia to the American people.
At the same time, officials across the U.S. have been steadily ending pandemic-related mandates and restrictions as the winter Omicron surge wanes, eroding the utility of such protests. New guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Friday ease mask recommendations dramatically, with more than 70 percent of the population now residing in areas that are marked with "low" or "medium" levels of community spread, though some skeptics on both the left and right believe that has more to do with Biden’s approval ratings and the Democrats’ chances in the midterms than it does with actual science.
Between these two major developments, the U.S. trucker convoys have seen significantly less play in the media, and less interest from the public at large, than those that rocked the Canadian capital a couple weeks back. On the morning the convoy reached St. Louis County, stammering moron (and host on St. Louis conservative talk radio station KFKT-FM) Brian Kilmeade didn’t even see fit to include the protests in his “Brian’s Big Three” daily roundup of “the stories you need to know,” as sure a sign as any that convoys are, like, so last week.
Naturally, some see the lack of attention as a conspiracy. One of the participants, Ryan Wright, told the Guardian that he believed the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a distraction to take attention off what he and his cohort are doing.
“I’m not the only one that feels this way,” Wright said. “But I feel like it’s a big fat smokescreen to keep everyone distracted on what is really going on in the world.”
Others, in spite of footage of the death and destruction in Ukraine, still believe that their ordeal is equally tragic.
“People now say: 'Well, those ‘Freedom Truckers’ sure picked a bad week to try and get attention for being victims of tyranny,'” one Telegram user wrote in a popular convoy forum. “They are starting to twist the events by saying oh our suffering is somehow much less. NO IT IS NOT!”
Haphazard organization, logistical hiccups and poor attendance hampered some smaller, like-minded convoys that were set to converge on Washington this week. A Florida-based group only gathered about a dozen trucks, Vice reports, and was soon plagued by infighting. Another group, dubbed Freedom Convoy USA 2022, also attempted to set up a convoy, but nixed the idea due to lack of participation. Those organizers encouraged the truckers who did show up to join the People's Convoy, which is set to arrive in the U.S. capitol on March 5.
In D.C., Maryland gubernatorial hopeful Kyle Sefcik organized a convoy-affiliated "Stage of Freedom" event near the Washington Monument, timed to coincide with President Joe Biden's State of the Union address. Despite his initial prediction of some 3,000 attendees, the Daily Beast reported that only twelve people actually came out. “Where are the trucks?!” Sefcik yelled at one point as he addressed the sparse group.
“I still showed up, even if none of you did,” Sefcik raged. “I’d still be right here because I keep my word.”
That event would wrap up early due to lack of interest. At the end of his speech, Sefcik bemoaned the money he’d lost by organizing it.
But while some convoy events fizzled, on I-44 here in Missouri it was another story.
On Monday afternoon, Dusty Freund was on his way home to St. Louis after visiting family in southwest Missouri. Headed east on I-44, he began seeing lots of brake lights near Springfield.
“At first I thought there was an accident on the highway,” the 32-year-old managing editor for literary magazine Boulevard explains. “Then I saw a large group of people gathered alongside the highway waving American flags and Trump flags and a few Christian flags.”
Freund had the bad luck to get caught behind the People’s Convoy as it lumbered its way across the state. Thus began a 150-mile ordeal, in which Freund became part of the rolling protest entirely against his will.
Freund says semi-trucks blocked the highway and slowed to speeds of about 25 miles per hour. On an overpass, he saw two fire trucks using their ladders to hang a huge American flag over the highway in support of the convoy. There was lots of waving and honking.
After Freund spent a while trapped in traffic, the semi in the passing lane moved to the right, mercifully allowing him to pass. But this victory was short-lived. As he drove, Freund began noticing an inordinate number of pickup trucks with flags attached to them, as well as cars and vans with “Fuck Joe Biden” and “Let’s Go Brandon” signs. There were a lot of them, even for outstate Missouri. It dawned on him that he was still trapped in the thick of it.
“And then I hit another wall of semis at the next town,” he says. “Same situation.”
Freund noted that supporters had gathered alongside the highway, and at nearly every overpass. The groups frequently included police officers and construction workers. A sign manufacturer had changed its digital signage to welcome the “People’s Convoy,” and many of the vehicles he was fruitlessly attempting to pass had the same wording.
At every small town: Stops and starts in traffic, people waving from overpasses, endless flags. Some who were not part of the convoy rolled down their windows and waved at supporters to signal their agreement. Freund saw composites of the Canadian and American flags, and a white van covered with signatures and messages with telling signifiers like “We the People” and “Don’t Tread on Me.”
He was finally able to get around the convoy just outside of Sullivan, Missouri, where the group stopped for the day. The final truck of the convoy had a “pro-life” message and was covered in pictures of cut up fetuses.
Just before 11 a.m. yesterday, a man made his way down the length of the Bowles overpass with exciting news: The People’s Convoy was just two exits away. The crowd, anticipating this moment for some four hours with a confusing lack of chairs or refreshments of any kind, immediately perked up and began readying their waving arms.
As the sea of vehicles came into view, so began a seemingly endless nightmare of honking horns, with baffling characters parading against tyranny to the cheers of the assembled crowd.
One vehicle had multiple messages, reading "People's Convoy" and "We Will Not Comply" and, of course, "Let's Go Brandon." Another — presumably the pro-life truck Freund saw — said "Don't Feed Our Babies to the Sewer Rats." Yet another had “Bitches for Freedom” scrawled haphazardly on its door.
There was a truck bearing the QAnon slogan “Where We Go 1 We Go All,” a motorcyclist with his two dogs riding in his sidecar, and a woman driving a VW Bug with Missouri plates who seemed out of place, and frankly radiated the type of unhappiness that must come with being swallowed up by a group who is hellbent on making everyone else on the road sit in traffic.
After twenty minutes, the eastbound lanes of the highway slowed to a crawl, with cars stretching as far as the eye could see. It became difficult to determine the difference between the slow-moving parade of protesters and its hapless victims. Flags remained the clearest signifier.
It’s hard to see how trapping people in traffic across the nation will win people over to their cause, but it is remarkably on-brand for a group who has been belligerently impeding any attempts to rein in or control the COVID-19 pandemic nearly since its beginning.
Still, this event had the distinct feel of a last hurrah, as these groups who have found communities and formed their identities around resisting the alleged “tyranny” of basic health measures see that the world is finally moving on from all that – and from them – after all.
At the 40-minute mark, the police officer who had been on the scene apparently decided he'd had enough and drove away. Just three minutes later, in what seemed to signify that the convoy had finally reached its end, an apoplectic man driving in a black truck flipped off the crowd assembled on the overpass with an intensity that clearly indicated he was in this predicament against his will.
All told, I can’t say I blame him.
