trucker convoy gets a few dozen instead on the700,000 they

[moonshinegnomie]

Paranoia about federal entrapment is looming large over the “Take Our Border Back” convoy, which departed Virginia Beach Monday morning and plans to arrive in Texas later this week.

By noon Monday, after a few hours on the road, the convoy had amassed just a few dozen participants—so far, predominantly men over the age of 60. The convoy’s promoters promised over 700,000 participants.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxjygb/trucker-convoy-texas-border-standoff-conspiracy-theories-dooming-protest


they have a new conspiracy to blame for it. they think the convoy is actually an FBI trap.

“All i’m gonna say to the people who are going to the border: don’t get caught in another January 6th event and do dumb shit to get entrapped by your corrupt government,”

[Easterncedar]

1. Ha Ha Ha!

Eeejits.

[Lovie777]

2. And these people want shithole and cult to run the country........................

again. All are much more horrible than before. We as a country would be double to triple fucked up.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

3. Most true truckers, like myself, view these assholes with contempt,

we don't have time to try to foment a civil war, we're too busy trying to make a living.
We have a saying in the industry, if the wheels ain't turnin', this truck ain't earnin'
Words real truckers live by.

[Botany]

5. So how much would it cost you to drive your tractor (sans trailer) from Norfolk, VA to the border ...

… @ McAllen, TX in just diesel fuel alone?

[moonshinegnomie]

7. nothing. mexico will pay for it

just like they paid for the wall

[ms liberty]

67. Oh there's a DU'zy!

[MarineCombatEngineer]

9. Well, figure the average semi gets between 4 to 7 MPG without hauling a trailer,

and the trip would be appox. 1600 to 1800 miles depending on the route taken, and semis are restricted to what roads, streets, etc are allowed on and the average national cost of diesel is appox. $3.86 a gallon, so it would be quite expensive, plus the wear and tear on the truck.

[Botany]

14. So around $6,400 not counting tires, oil, highway fees, insurance, taxes, food, and speed.

And that is just one way and you would be missing out on @ least 2 or 3 contracts to
haul stuff too.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

16. Correct.

I don't know how these jackwagons can afford this, but I can always pick up the loads they're missing out on and collect the money.

I have 2-150 gallon tanks on my truck and it costs me over $1,000.00 to fill up from about 1/4 full tanks plus my DEF tank I have to fill every other fueling stop.

The money adds up very quickly.

[WA-03 Democrat]

17. That's a lot of overhead for operations

adds up quickly indeed. No room for error.

[Botany]

21. Back in the day when I worked @ a large garden center/nursery if a supplier did not have their own...

… trucks and drivers and contracted it out any driver who blew off a load with out a good
reason or notice would have had a hard time picking up more work from any nursery. We
all knew each other. Btw hauling live plants is a time critical thing and the coolers for the
trailers needed fuel too.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

25. Yeah, I forgot about the reefers, they have their own fuel tanks too.

I contract with WalMart also to haul their trailers and if I refuse a load, or are consistently late in picking up or delivering a load for them, they'll terminate my contract, that's why I stay on their preferred list, and they pay pretty good to haul.

[Botany]

34. So a trucker can't call the dispatcher and refuse a load without a good explanation?

Btw do you own your own rig?

[MarineCombatEngineer]

41. Yep, if I call my agent and tell him to call a distributor and refuse the load without a good excuse,

then I could lose the contract and the word would get out fast with the potential loss of loads from other distributors.
I do own 2 trucks, the one I pilot down the road is in my sig line and a lady friend of mine drives my other truck both of which are Peterbilt long noses.
I tend to stick to the I-5 corridor, from CA to the Canadian border and she likes doing the coast to coast runs, although I do frequently pick up the cross country loads if she is already hauling a load.

[Botany]

51. Back in the day I had to call a nursery (supplier) about a contract driver and the owner of ...

… that nursery called me right back … he and his family had been doing business with the nursery I was ….
… working @ for years and apologized and told me he didn’t see that the driver in question would ever be
a problem again.

Btw I drove a bulldog box truck a few times too. As for the big rigs I could pull them up
or back them just a little but that was just about it.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

53. Because of my background in the Marines,

I had no problem jumping into a semi and going down the road, I aced my CDL written and driving test the first time and I've never had a problem with my DOT Med card, at 76 yo, I' m still in excellent health.

[TlalocW]

68. Yeah

But are your results from the MOCA test as brag-worthy as Trump's?

[MarineCombatEngineer]

69. Dammit, you now owe me a new laptop,

I just spit my soda all over my screen laughing.
Good one, in fact, I'd say its a DUzy.

[3Hotdogs]

59. Not that much of a sacrifice if God and the American Way are at stake.

The thing of it is, what are they gonna do when they get there. In the D.C. fiasco, they spend a week or two, tying up 495 in one big circle jerk. There are no big circles of highway in Texas to drive in circles in.

[yellowdogintexas]

73. The big circles of highway are around DFW, Houston, Austin and San ANtonio

none of which are near the border.

Eagle Pass is out in the middle of nowhere, in fact most of the border is very rural in Texas, except for Brownsville/Matamoros; Laredo/Nuevo Laredo and El Paso/Juarez.

Big Bend National Park and a couple of adjacent state parks lie very near the Rio Grande, so not much population there.

[efhmc]

76. Yeah, this Texan had to laugh at the idea of those blowhards making an impact at the Texas border.

You think that they might at least look at the map to see how to get there.

[A HERETIC I AM]

79. $6400?!?! What?

How did you arrive at that figure?

Marine combat engineer said between 4 to 7 mpg bobtailing (which is low, in this truckers experience, a modern tractor bobtailing would get closer to 10) so let’s say 7 mpg.

Norfolk to Laredo is 1673, so let’s just say 1700 to make it easy.

1700 divided by 7 = 243 gallons.

243 times 3.83 ( national diesel average) = $930

So tops we are talking $1860 in fuel round trip.

An owner operator would have to be making the high end of $3.85 per mile for the trip to come close to your figure of $6400.

But he’s right. Most truck drivers in this country have bigger things to worry about than this nonsense.

[reACTIONary]

82. For that kind of money...

... you could go to the supper bowl and wave hi to Taylor Swift

[DemocraticPatriot]

61. So there are a lot of cheaper ways to make a political point, yeah?

LOL

The organizers were a little over-optimistic, or know nothing about trucking...

[MarineCombatEngineer]

64. I would say a bit of both.

[2naSalit]

19. I'd say no less than...

$1,000.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

20. Definitely way north of $1,000 just in fuel costs alone. nt

[2naSalit]

32. A wild guess!

I haven't had to think about it in so long, It used to take about $1100, one way, from Patterson, NJ to LAX with a full load back in the day in a different century.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

44. Yeah, the cost of fuel way back in the day was cheaper than today, plus just about every state

now requires that semi's be equipped with a DEF tank to be able to operate in states.
Thanks to Pres. Biden, the cost of fuel is coming down which helps the bottom line.

[2naSalit]

50. Definitely...

One of the parts I don't miss.

[brewens]

29. I saw a lot of they guys in Canada were contractor types in their work trucks when they wouldn't be working

anyway.

[ProfessorGAC]

33. I Wondered About That

Seems to me that taking the time to drive hundreds, or even a couple thousand miles, suggests these particular truckers working very hard.
Of course MCE, we know that "nobody wants to work anymore." Their line, not mine. Except now, it applies to them.
How many truckers can afford taking a couple weeks off to make a political point? Not many, I'd guess.

[llmart]

42. Maybe Ginny's funding the trip!

She seems to like getting involved in stuff like this.

[ProfessorGAC]

45. Certainly Possible

Their public "fundraising" raised a whole $30k.
That doesn't seem like much for 30 or 40 truckers for a week.

[LiberalLovinLug]

56. Yup. Most truckers are moderates either way. Believe in science and health safety.

Here in Canada, where the whole trucker convoy thing started, it was initially a protest by just 10% of the truckers who cross the American border and come back. They were mandated to take the vaccine to cross. Which is only about a third of all truckers in Canada. So 10% of a third of the total truck drivers.

The other 90% of that category had no problem with that requirement.

Also....news flash.....The US also required all truckers to be vaccinated to enter the US. The Trump government no less. So even if Trudeau threw caution to the wind and nixed that requirement, US border guards would have stopped them. But they of course didn't talk about that.

And then other conspiracy theorists joined the fray. It became an anti-Trudeau convoy of people, mostly men, who sympathized with the MAGA movement down south. And money from the US was flooding in for them. Turned into just a carnival of whacky COVID deniers, and fundamentalist religious cult members.

[DENVERPOPS]

80. Well Said MCE !!!!!!!!!!!!! NC

[lame54]

4. You're not using Trump math

[RussellCattle]

22. That was my first thought too. "Biggest convoy evah. Let's pull a number out of my ass - let's say 500, no wait 600...

......OK, 700 thousand patriot truckers. That's the ticket!"

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

6. why would any trucker participate?

[keithbvadu2]

8. So, those few dozen are actually FBI plants?

[Beachnutt]

23. Antifa FBI

in disguise.

[KS Toronado]

30. Oh my, those are the worst kind !

[patphil]

10. You know, these guys rely on their trucks as their livelyhood.

Taking a week off to play border wars in Texas ain't gonna pay the rent.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

12. You are correct.

I spend an average of 3 weeks out of the month living in my truck.

[Torchlight]

11. As with all things in their manufactured crisis, it petered out before it got started.

GOP's feeding the rage machine, thus taking eyeballs off the filthy smoke and grimy mirrors they're using to prop up a melodramatic, but wholly fallacious narrative they're trying (and miserably failing) to collectively tar the Democratic party with in order to hurt Pres. Biden's reelection campaign.

Smoke and mirrors is all they have left, and cornered, they become wholly irrational, lashing out in any direction they think there's a chance.

[Kingofalldems]

13. There was another one a few years ago...

that sat in Hagertown, Md. for what seemed like an eternity.

[Raven123]

15. Ok then. Tell these folks election polling places are FBI traps.

[shrike3]

24. Brilliant.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

46. That would certainly scare them off.

[3Hotdogs]

62. You're close. It's the actual voting that's gonna get us on the Biden list. Not answering poll questions.

We gotta get the word out. Don't vote for Trump. Biden will use A.I. to track down Trump voters and fuck up our lives.


Pass it on before its too late.

[SouthernDem4ever]

71. Therein lies the problem with magats

They know that Dems will follow the law while they look for ways to break it.

[Kid Berwyn]

18. MAGA Minds: 70 is less than 700,000.

Don't have to have a GED or a PhD to know it's a lot less.

[Captain Zero]

54. Trump can call his PhD. MIT Uncle though so

Not fair. Not fair at all.

[onethatcares]

26. the folks that drove off Virginia Beach Peir this a.m.

although they weren't in the convoy, they may have been scouts.

[k55f5r]

72. SPIT TAKE

You got me with that.

[Beachnutt]

27. Meanwhile

the Stock market is setting records daily, unemployment is at an all time low, inflation is being tamed and fuel prices have come down dramatically.

Don't look over here look over at the Mexican border that has no illegals crossing today.

[moonshinegnomie]

55. the idiot took credit for the market today

he said its the trump market because wall street knows hes a shoo in

[Mr.Bill]

28. I heard they had been raising funds through donations.

The article I read said they had raised 30,000 dollars.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

38. Well, you know the old saying,

a fool and his money are soon to be departed.

[Mr. Ected]

31. Crowd estimation is always on the high side with the MAGA idjuts

Trump wonders how he could lose an election with so damned many people packing arenas to see him, but aside from the fact that the small venues he chooses are seldom even close to full, that's hardly an honest measure of one's electability.

[mymomwasright]

35. "Who's paying for the gas?"

Heard a caller pose that question on sirius about an hour ago. Big trucks and lots of fuel for that trip.

[niyad]

36. God isn't supporting his army?

[Warpy]

37. I'm surorised they got that many stupid people

who apparently no longer have to work for a living.

Immigration is the way it is because the rich and corporate like it that way. Illegality keeps the new workers powerless and the quantity admitted keeps our wages low.

Republicans are better at drumming up hysteria about it. It's another reason rich men might be narly ready to pull the plug.

[yliza]

39. This is a direct result of Jan. 6 prosecutions

We would’ve seen a lot more political violence by now if not for those prosecutions and convictions.

[AllaN01Bear]

40. snork.

[LuvLoogie]

43. Antifa Convoy!

[MarineCombatEngineer]

48. Oh nooooosssss, the evil Antifa.

[TwilightZone]

47. This is an example of why all of the talk of a civil war is nonsense.

They can't even arrange a truck convoy, but we're supposed to believe they're going to stage a revolution?

As soon as they discovered that Trump wasn't going to protect them from consequences, namely 1/6, the number of these clowns willing to take that chance dropped dramatically.

[tanyev]

49. "WE GOT A CRISIS!!1!--WE GOT TO FIX IT....NEXT YEAR!!1!"

[Beartracks]

52. "Do dumb shit" and you entrap yourself, dumbasses. n/t

[barbtries]

57. they get so much publicity

you'd think there were 700 million of them. disgusted with media these days.

[DemocraticPatriot]

58. The J-6 prosecutions have proved to be a deterrent preventing

other similar nonsense....

[yardwork]

60. I can't get that song out of my head.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

63. Every time there's a thread about trucks a truckers, I think of this song:

[Mopar151]

75. Band name came from a truckers magazine!

OVERDRIVE - my uncle subscribed, passed them along...

[Blue Owl]

65. Uh oh -- they gonna have Convoy Envy!

[swong19104]

66. Heavy trucks burn a lot of fuel

People ain't got time or money to drive down to TX just to make some political hay. Those trucks go around 5 miles/gallon. Maybe a bit better if there are no trailers hitched to the cab.

[usonian]

70. They're stuck at a toll gate.

https://mediaproxy.tvtropes.org/width/600/

[FalloutShelter]

77. Hmmmmm ... lets' see...

Their Go Fund Me page has raised $130,000 for this stunt.

Who gets the money when it fizzles?

Another RWNJ grift.

[Maru Kitteh]

78. "don't do dumb shit to get entrapped"

Yeah - uh, that's not "entrapment." That's you being you in your natural environment. Criming.

[Martin68]

81. Victims of their own conspiracy theories and misinformation campaigns.