The Truckers' Convoy Comes To Its Inevitable End

Readers of my blog may remember that I have covered quite a number of right wing gatherings over the years, which promised massive turnouts of people enraged at the fact that our government would try to do anything, and which, despite massive free publicity from the corporate press, which could not resist the compulsion to present them as the voice of  True Americans, inevitably turned out to be massive failures, rarely attracting more than a handful of loons.  Fooled again and again, the media refuse to learn a thing from their humiliation, and so they repeat the process as soon as a new astroturfed right wing "movement" demands their attention.

Well, here's the newest example- the Truckers' Convoy, or the several convoys, all under the sway of their own alleged leaders, which in a classic example of press malfeasance converged on the vital national center of Hagerstown, Maryland, to great fanfare, and then failed to make it the last hour's drive into DC.

Thinking about this, I initially thought that this was the result of a carefully coordinated action to show solidarity with their true leader, Vladimir Putin, whose own convoy has failed to make it into a capitol city recently.  However, I believe I have a far more likely explanation for this action.

I do not believe claims that the truckers were "afraid" to enter the city; they are too stupid to be afraid.  What I do believe happened is that they were told in no uncertain terms by Federal authorities that they would not be allowed inside the beltway.

Over the years, there have been many large demonstrations in the Capitol, some dwarfing the truckers' convoy, with varying results.  This time, however, they showed up with, perhaps, a couple hundred semi-trailers and, given the fact that a number of groups claimed to be the leaders of this idiocy, absolutely nobody could state with any confidence what was in those trailers.  What would have stopped a 21st century Terry McVeigh, or maybe ISIS, from leasing a semi, filling it with explosives, and blowing it up somewhere in DC, with results that would be far beyond what happened to the Federal building in Omaha?  It would have been criminally irresponsible for authorities to allow these trucks anywhere near the center of DC, and I believe the truckers were told this in no uncertain terms.  The truckers, probably more afraid of being called cowards than anything else, went along with this without explaining why, and and culminated their long trip with a couple of meaningless circles around the beltway, after which they are about to declare victory and go home, out a couple of thousand dollars worth of gas, for nothing.

And still, the media will fall for the next hollow wingnut stunt, just like they did for this one, because they never learn their lesson about being bullied into letting the right set the narrative.