The Right-Wingers LARPing as Working-Class Truckers

[Nevilledog]

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Christopher Mathias
@letsgomathias
"The 'freedom convoy' isn’t a proletariat uprising — it’s a fight for the bourgeoisie far-right, fronted by a group of truckers whose beliefs make them a minority even in the trucking world."

really worth reading this @eddiekimx piece

melmagazine.com
The Right-Wingers LARPing as Working-Class Truckers
The conservative media has painted the anti-vaxx Canadian trucker convoy as a grassroots blue-collar movement, but the group is actually one backed by alt-right extremists and political grifters
11:58 AM · Feb 14, 2022

https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/freedom-convoy-astroturfing


The trucks keep lining up, clogging the heart of Ottawa and blocking roads to the U.S. border, burping out ear-splitting honks and serving as the weapons of an occupation.

The fight has been building since January 15th, when the Canadian government announced that all truckers crossing into the country from the U.S. would need proof of vaccination or be quarantined for two weeks — a regulation that already applies to Canadian citizens and travelers. Truckers had been exempted from this law for the purpose of speeding up supply chains, but a steep rise in the Omicron variant over the winter inspired the push for a consistent policy.

For a small group of anti-vaxx truckers, however, the mandate became a symbolic last straw in what they describe as a fight for freedom and personal choice. A convoy grew in Vancouver and drove east, gaining political notoriety all along the way. They got to Ottawa, the nation’s capital, on January 28th — and now, they’re refusing to leave until lockdowns and vaccination mandates are overturned. Some even claim that they’ll fight until Prime Minister Justin Trudeau steps down.

The conservative media has painted this trucker convoy as a brave grassroots movement led by the working class, striking back against out-of-touch meddling of political elites and progressives. The convoy’s leaders have emphasized this, too, screaming and shouting about how mandates and lockdowns are destroying small businesses and threatening the sanctity of the economy (nevermind that research shows a less compelling effect).

But upon further examination, the hundreds of trucks that are disrupting downtown Ottawa, serving as the vanguard of the movement, aren’t a celebration of working-class solidarity. It’s the ultimate expression of a far-right grift, led by extremists and paid for by a smorgasbord of major conservative funders. And the more you look at the context, the clearer it becomes that the truckers, many of them independent business owners, aren’t simply sacrificing their wages in a good-faith battle for liberty.

*snip*