The American Trucker Convoy is coming to Washington D.C. for the State of the Union address Tuesday night, and the anticipation is building. Actually, I don’t think that but I felt like I needed a little pizzaz as an opening line so I will continue to power through now that I have made that statement.
However, I do have a point to make here in regards to a very interesting piece my colleague Bonchie wrote here Monday titled, “The American Trucker Convoy Is a Really Bad Idea.” I suggest you give that post a look before you read mine so you are following along with my points.
As I read his piece, I fully understand his view about a clear-cut goal for the protest so that it is clear for the public to understand. I would imagine his concern is the same as mine in that the media is never going to give anything that even looks a bit conservative, or possibly anti-Ice Cream Joe, a fair shake. Bonchie is a strong supporter of what happened in Canada, as I have been, and our other colleagues here have written a lot about what has occurred in the Great White North here at RedState.
I agree with almost everything in his opening statement from the piece above:
No doubt, I was a strong supporter of the Freedom Convoy in Canada. I felt their cause was just and that the crackdown by PM Justin Trudeau was truly authoritarian and disturbing.
The thing about that protest movement, though, was that it had a clear goal: To get rid of the federal vaccine mandate affecting truckers. While the ideological boundaries were stretched at times, it was never a question that the Freedom Convoy was fighting for something tangible and just.
On that note, what is this American trucker convoy protesting? There is no federal vaccine mandate for truckers (or private employees in general) in the United States. COVID-19 mandates at the state level have also been nearly universally lifted. Further, the fact that the U.S. is a republic has always presented a far different dynamic compared to Canada’s top-down, federal control of the populace. In short, you cannot have a successful political movement if it isn’t focused, and if the point is just to bait law enforcement in hopes of getting attention on CNN, that doesn’t seem like a very good reason for its existence.
I will concede that the convoy heading to D.C. does not have the same organization and messaging that its counterpart in Canada had. As Bonchie acknowledges, that goal did morph a bit in the three weeks that the protest shut down Ottawa. However, there is a United States federal mandate that needs to be eliminated. The Biden administration introduced a mandate that truckers heading back from Mexico or Canada into the United States must be vaxxed just a week after the Trudeau government instituted theirs.
Then last week the Republicans in the United States Senate introduced a bill to repeal the Biden mandate.
From the Press Release:
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Rick Scott (R-FL), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Mike Braun (R-IN), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Josh Hawley (R-MO), John Hoeven (R-ND), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Roger Marshall (R-KS) introduced the Terminating Reckless and Unnecessary Checks Known to Erode Regular Shipping (TRUCKERS) Act. The TRUCKERS Act would eliminate the proof of vaccination requirement for non-U.S. citizen commercial truck drivers traveling from Canada or Mexico who are seeking to temporarily enter the United States for business through a land port of entry.
Congressman Carlos Giménez (R-FL) will introduce companion legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives this week.
“The Biden Administration’s decision to impose a vaccine mandate on cross-border truckers transporting goods to and from Americans makes zero sense,” Rubio said. “Our bill will put an end to this craziness, help relieve the ongoing supply chain crisis, and restore freedom for North American truckers.”
As I said above, this has not been clearly communicated, and Bonchie is spot on about that. Most people have no clue about the Administration’s vax requirement for cross-border truckers and might think this is just solely a reaction to what happened in Canada.
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Where I diverge with my distinguished colleague is where he says this:
Rather, the reason I’m addressing the matter is because of how politically stupid it is.
Understand that Joe Biden is not just on the ropes. He’s been thrown out of the ring already. The president’s latest approval numbers are horrific, and with the Russian invasion of Ukraine underway, leading to serious issues abroad and at home, things could actually get worse. It’s not just Biden who’s in the dumps, though. Republicans lead on the congressional generic ballot by a large margin. 2022 is shaping up to be a massive wave year for the GOP.
Being politically stupid is the GOP or any other political observer thinking Kevin McCarthy will be less of a disaster as Speaker of the House than John Boehner was given that McCarthy is a good friend and roommate of Frank Luntz. (Tucker Carlson targets McCarthy over ties to GOP pollster Frank Luntz). More on that coming disaster in another post.
I heard similar arguments during the Tea Party days, which were akin to playing it safe and just waiting until the next election. Do you know what that got us? It got us Obamacare 12 years later, which will never be repealed. It got us a larger government that’s just not as large (kinda) when the R’s are in charge.
Bonchie is right that the Biden administration is a disaster. In my opinion, the overall fear that another Jan 6th could occur and take some of the steam out of the Biden team sinking is playing defense and we don’t have time for that anymore. This country is in some major trouble, and if you want the Republicans to actually do something other than pay lip service if they take control in November you had better put the fear of the Lord Jesus into them. One way you do that is to show up at places they are — including Washington D.C. Let them know you are watching and will be voting and will tell all your friends to vote for or against them. Be polite but let them know that the time for filling hot air balloons with political rhetoric is over.
Do not worry about what the media says or spins, because they already hate you. I do not say this lightly, but it is shown to be true each and every day. The mainstream media in this country hates what Main Street Americans stand for, and we have allowed them to spin their crap for way too long. Worrying about what Jake Tapper is gonna spew on CNN or any other alphabet news outlet regarding any event that real Americans who care enough show up for is no longer a consideration in my book. They are going to call you a racist, homophobe, and/or hater of any and all pronouns regardless of whether you go to a rally or not.
So I guess I’m just sick of being defensive for essentially breathing or because I have the damn audacity of thinking and writing Let’s Make Words Mean Things Again.
Tomorrow, you are going to undoubtedly read about the 10 year anniversary of the passing of Andrew Breitbart. I did not know him well but had the pleasure of breaking bread with the man on occasion, and he shaped how I view the media and the world today. One of his greatest shove it back in your face moments involved the type of smear job that lefties love to inflict.
At a 2010 rally/gathering of the Tea Party folks on Capitol Hill, a gaggle of Democrats, including revered Congressman John Lewis, said that the folks protesting at the Capitol had used the N-word to Lewis and others as they walked by them. Breitbart and his team went through hours of cell phone video and could not find any evidence that this was the case. Andrew was so sure that this did not happen he later offered a 10,000 dollar reward for any proof that the slur had been used. No one ever collected that reward, but I imagine if someone 12 years later could find the proof they could still collect.
The reason why is that the media repeated a lie that was told by people who specialize in lying. No apologies were ever issued and never will be.
The left hates us and will destroy you whether or not you show up at a rally or just post a meme on Facebook they dislike or that hurts their feelings. The time for caring about what they think is long past, in my opinion, and the folks in Canada gave us a bit of a wake-up call on that.
Whip those cell phones out tomorrow and have a good rally. If some idiots get out of line, grab a cop, and don’t let them ruin your right to protest the idiotic things the government does on a daily basis.
Truly, that is the most American thing to do.
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