Truck drivers and their supporters are now as close as possible to the nation’s capital, where they want to hold lawmakers “accountable” for the government’s response to the pandemic. Their plans for the coming days remained unclear on Saturday afternoon, but the organizers said they intended to stay here, about an hour from the Ring Road, until the end of the day and hold a rally in the evening.
The motives for the convoy are also vague. People gathered in this western Maryland city have expressed frustration with mandatory workplace vaccines and restrictions designed to limit the spread of the coronavirus, though those rules have now been lifted in many places. The speedway crowd chanted Biden’s anti-presidential slogans and showed support for former President Donald Trump. Extremism analysts point to a broader set of right-wing causes that motivated participants.
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Trucks and cars entered the circuit on Saturday morning, passing under an American flag flying on a cable between two 30-foot booms attached to semi-cars. Inside, truckers and their supporters were waking up after Friday’s rally. Most of the crowd were white men, but there were also small children and dogs.
Rows and rows of tanker trucks, flatbeds, vans, SUVs and pickup trucks lined the parking lot with license plates from Utah, Maine, Arkansas, Texas and other states. A chorus of horns sounded from where the convoy vehicles stood in rows, waiting for the next move.
On Friday night, Brian Brace, the convoy’s organizer, looked at the crowd, some of whom were wearing red, white and blue caps and waving American flags, and told them to celebrate their distance. But they would have to wait longer to know their final destination and what to do when they get there.
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“Well, we’ll do something,” he said, laughing. “What it is remains to be seen. Please, be patient”.
The organizers of the eponymous “People’s Convoy” stressed that they would not go to the District of Columbia, and had previously said that they would head to the Beltway area on Saturday. But on Friday morning, Brace announced to supporters in Lore City, Ohio that those plans had changed. On Saturday, they stopped in Hagerstown before likely aiming for another location “just two miles from the Beltway,” he said, without elaborating.
Asked about the band’s plans, People’s Convoy organizer Mike Landis said, “We’re going to further annoy DC… Just make them think a little.” He continued, “Look, we are truck drivers; we are very spontaneous.”
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The possibility of trucker caravans heading for the Beltway raised safety concerns, and police agencies from the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia were brought in to monitor the group. Supporters joined and left throughout the trip, making it difficult to estimate the size of the column.
Officials across the region advised drivers to be prepared for potentially dangerous traffic jams over the weekend. “This is a very fluid situation,” Ellen Kamilakis, spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Transportation, said Saturday.
On Friday evening the mood of the group was festive and proud. Truck drivers yelled “Take me home country road” and ate spaghetti, hamburgers and chicken tacos donated by supporters. The leaders stood on a makeshift stage of a flatbed truck and criticized the federal government for imposing vaccine and mask mandates, policies that they felt violated their basic rights as Americans.
The protesters, inspired by the self-proclaimed “Freedom Convoy” that had occupied downtown Ottawa for weeks, complained about the alleged violation of their freedoms. Some truckers flew flags that mixed the stars and stripes with the Canadian maple leaf.
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Extremism researchers who follow the movement say the demonstrators’ hostility to vaccines is just one of several anti-government right-wing beliefs they espouse. Platforms, semi-trailers and other trucks and cars in the parking lot of the autodrome were decorated signs and messages containing references to far-right political views and conspiracy theories, including calls to “arrest Fauci” referring to White House medical adviser Anthony S. Fauci and equating mandates with slavery. Some supporters wore Make America Great Again caps. Others waved flags with a clear anti-Biden slogan.
On Saturday, signs and banners were full of all kinds of political slogans, Bible verses and expressions of patriotism. “Open the Keystone conveyor,” read one. Others: “Trump won” and “we will not obey.”
A woman was offering free copies of the Bible from a stand next to another supporter selling People’s Convoy T-shirts.
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Braze said the group wants to end the national emergency declaration in response to the coronavirus, first issued by then-President Donald Trump in March 2020 and later extended by President Biden, and have Congress hold hearings to investigate the government’s response to the pandemic.
Craig Brown, 53, left his home in Sandpoint, Idaho, two weeks ago. A cargo truck driver, he delivered apples to Los Angeles to get closer to the convoy’s starting point in Adelanto, California. daughters stand up for what they believe in. So he bought a month’s worth of non-perishable food, installed an extra freezer in his car, and set out to join the movement.
On Feb. 23, a group of American truckers began a cross-country road trip from California to Washington to protest coronavirus-related restrictions.
On the way to Los Angeles, Brown blew up the back of his truck and waited five days for repairs. And before he even found any other truckers, Brown adopted a two-year-old golden retriever named Copper.
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By February 23, he joined the group as they left Southern California. Brown has since said the ride was more exciting than he could have imagined. People across the country signed in support, he said, and so many volunteers brought food to rest stops that he barely ate his non-perishable food.
“It’s a thrill to see all the people on overpasses and roadsides,” Brown said. “All these people treat us like we’re heroes.”
Brown, who had covid-19 last month, doesn’t want to do anything political in DC. He said he wanted to end the trip by parking next to the truckers and their supporters and having lunch together.
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“We will eat, celebrate and enjoy the company of people who consider us heroes,” he said.
During the ride, fans stood on the cold flyovers of the highway to wave American flags. They cheered at rallies and followed the journey on social media. Donations have arrived. By Monday, the group said they had raised over $1.5 million.
One member of the convoy said during a YouTube live stream Friday that “selected trucks will go to the White House,” but emphasized that the group as a whole will not go to the city. He did not elaborate on these plans, and there was no sign that they had materialized by early Saturday afternoon.
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“I don’t want people to think we’re invading Washington,” he said live. “This is not a convoy bound for a DC dorm. These are a few selected drivers.”
National Park Service spokesman Mike Litterst said on Friday there were no applications for permits to escort truckers in the coming days. Large trucks are banned from many of the county’s roads, and there are many regulations governing their operation, including the amount of time they may be idle.
In Hagerstown, Heather Kelly, 43, a former nurse, said she always had the vaccines she needed for her job, but was reluctant to do what she thought was the new coronavirus shot. Her rejection of mask rules and vaccine regulations — and the loss of faith in the government that she says it provoked — turned her life upside down. She quit her job at the nursing home and withdrew her children from school.
“You have free will, free choice,” she said. “You let the government tell you to put something on your face. Will I have to cover my head next time like in a Muslim country?”
Kelly, who said she voted for Barack Obama for president in 2008, traveled to Washington for a pro-Trump rally on January 6, 2021, but said she didn’t learn of the Capitol attack until she returned home to Ohio. . A little over a year later, she loaded her 18-year-old son into their van and joined the convoy.
“I worked hard. They took me. I spent my kids’ childhoods in medical school,” Kelly said, looking up at her son in the yellow light of the truck lights, her eyes filling with tears. “Seeing how everything is ruined makes me very sad.”
Jim Hasner joined the Indiana convoy in a truck. He owns his own company and blames the pandemic-related restrictions on the economic struggle.
Like some of the other participants, he accused mainstream media censorship and the government of covering up the real truth about the pandemic. He said the virus that claimed more than 1,600 lives in the United States on Friday was “disappeared.”
“It would be really cool if people could be honest about things,” he said. “Honest about what government overreach looks like, honest about what a vaccine really is. Have some transparency in the media because it’s just not accurate.”
Robert Erickson, 58, who joined the convoy west of Amarillo, Texas on Feb. 27, described his truck as “a motor home.”
Outside was written “For the sake of God and the country.” Inside, the sleeper was equipped with an oven, deep fryer, two burners, and a pair of 12-pound weights to “keep the body flexible”. Altoids and bottles of metabolic gums were on the deep fryer.
Erickson said he doesn’t usually vote, but went for Trump in 2016. For him, the column is not a political movement. Instead, he said he wanted every person in the government to resign.
“We need to start over,” he said.
Duncan reported from Washington. Jasmine Hilton and Peter Herrmann contributed to this report.