The Canadian truckers might have been driven out of Ottawa, but a copycat protest is brewing in the United States. Cockburn hears that police are preparing for demonstrations that could gridlock the DC area, and they could start as soon as Wednesday.
Honk honk! The truckers are coming to Washington — just in time for President Biden’s State of the Union address next week.
Cockburn has been a fan of truckers ever since he decided to see whether he could hitchhike across America using only Jim Beam trucks (he could, as it turns out). But in this case, the big riggers may be in need of a friendly correction. According to Fox 5 DC, one of the American trucker organizers, Bob Bolus, who owns a towing company in Pennsylvania, warned that their plan was to blockade the Capital Beltway, the highway that encircles Washington proper.
“I’ll give you an analogy of that of a giant boa constrictor,” Bolus said. “That basically squeezes you, chokes you and it swallows you, and that’s what we’re going to do to DC.” He added that emergency vehicles would be allowed through, but as for other swamp creature commuters, “if they can’t get to work, geez that’s too bad.”
Cockburn appreciates Bolus’ honesty. Having spent a frightful amount of time among self-satisfied Washingtonians, he supports any effort that might annoy or inconvenience them. Still…traffic at a standstill? Frustrated commuters unable to get to work? A Metro system that can’t handle the overflow?
We don’t need truckers to paralyze Washington. We’ve already done that ourselves.
That Washington can’t even run its own infrastructure grid shows that the truckers have a point about government incompetence. Still, DC’s commuting woes aside, the authorities are taking Bolus and his merry band of haulers very seriously. The Metro police are on alert and 700 unarmed National Guard troops have been called in to assist with traffic and crowd control. Fencing will be installed around the Capitol building, suggesting law enforcement still very much has January 6 on the brain.
Cockburn observes that, unlike in Canada, the American truckers aren’t limiting their grievances to Covid vaccine mandates. They’re angry about those, but also inflation and the porous southern border. A more general platform could result in a more protracted protest. In which case, Cockburn has a suggestion for our staunchly pro-labor president: instead of thumbing his nose at the people who transport his food, like Justin Trudeau did, maybe he should hear them out.
