Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let there be snark.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Peak wingnut was a lie.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

The words do not have to be perfect.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

The willow is too close to the house.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

This really is a full service blog.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

People are complicated. Love is not.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

You are here: Home / Politics / domestic terrorists / Sunday Night Open Thread: Farewell, for Now, to the ‘People’s Convoy’

Sunday Night Open Thread: Farewell, for Now, to the ‘People’s Convoy’

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But the grift will never die…

… The response, instead, has been mostly indifference. As well as some heckling and trolling. And some criticism that the 1776 Restoration Movement is just another group using a narrowly defined patriotism to grift for dollars and social media clout.

The protesters deny all of that. They say their cause is pure. For the past few weeks in Washington, their morning ritual has been the same. The first-risers get coffee going. Someone puts out doughnuts and fruit and snacks. Ice-filled coolers are restocked with water bottles…

Their demands are both insistent and vague. When asked for specifics, the members will say that they want representatives to recognize that they work for the people and address their grievances.

What the protest boils down to for most is a belief that the federal government should have much less authority over state governments when it comes to deciding almost every issue.

Support for that position here has been hard to garner. Most visitors have ignored them. The majority of the people who have stopped to talk with them have been foreigners, Fisher said. “They want to know what we’re about,” he said…

“This is family,” says Ohio truck driver and evangelical minister David Riddell, 57, the group’s leader, who said he never joined a protest until he connected with the People’s Convoy earlier this year. His eyes brim with tears. “So far in this movement, I’ve baptized three of them in the Potomac, renewed the vows of another couple, celebrated the 57th wedding anniversary with another one. This is family.”

In the family, Riddell allows debate and input on the issues, but he makes the final decisions, he said. He is also a member of the Proud Boys, the far-right extremist group that has a number of its leaders facing federal charges of seditious conspiracy and “opposing the lawful transfer of presidential power by force” on Jan. 6, 2021.

Riddell says he was not at the Capitol that day and has told his followers that if they choose violence, then he will no longer take part in the protest…

Many in the splinter group say they are anti-socialist and anti-big government and anti anything they think is anti-American. Their food and gas expenses are funded, they say, by other Americans who feel the same way they do. The group’s brochure solicits donations through Cash App, Venmo and Zelle. Riddell estimates the group has raised about $73,000 since forming.

They don’t believe mainstream news and get their information from far-right websites. They also follow each other’s live streams (there are lots of live streams). In their shared distrust of government and politicians and media, they found a community of like-minded souls…

If some of the group’s goals were philosophical and long-term, some of their needs were practical and immediate. When he first led his group into the District, Riddell said didn’t think he should need a permit to protest. “The Constitution is our permit,” he said defiantly. But protesters need port-a-potties. And port-a-potties need a permit. “The toilets is what broke me,” Riddell said, laughing.

For showers and to get a break from camping out in their cars, members occasionally headed to their base camp, a truck stop 83 miles away in Bunker Hill, W.Va., where their supplies of food, water, hygiene products, toilet paper and snacks are stored…

There have also been ongoing hostilities with members of another offshoot of the People’s Convoy who have accused the 1776 Restoration Movement of having members who are convicted sex offenders. Riddell said there was a former member of the group who had been convicted of child molestation in Indiana but that that person has left. That hasn’t stopped the bickering, online and in person, between the two groups.

On Monday, the group’s protest permit expires. By then, the last of the 1776 Restoration Movement protesters will have packed up their signs and flags and camp chairs and coolers and retreated to Bunker Hill, where they plan to regroup, reorganize, reread the Constitution and prepare to return in early September to seek redress of their grievances once more.

TBogg reportorial sighting:

The Canadian version was a lot more ‘successful’ in the short term, for reasons.

Making chicken salad from… well, you know:

… Extremists used the convoy “as a pulpit to get their ideas across and, in that sense, it was a success,” said David Hofmann, associate professor of sociology at the University of New Brunswick, who has been researching extremism in Canada for about a decade.

They did that directly, with talk of deposing and prosecuting the heads of Canadian government during the protests, as the convoy’s organizers declared was their goal in a “Memorandum of Understanding” leading up to the blockade.

But they were also able to do that less directly, by talking up the merits of the convoy on social media and podcasts that also promoted more extremist rhetoric and conspiracy theories…

Around 30% of Canadians agreed with the convoy’s message in February at the height of the protests, a number that has since shrunk to 25% in July, according to polling research firm Ekos Research Associates.

[Can we compromise on 27%?]

Though most COVID-19 restrictions on gatherings, wearing masks and vaccine requirements have been lifted in recent months, smaller anti-government protests have continued, with some held as recently as the national holiday on July 1…

With broad support for policies like universal healthcare and gun control, Canada has long been viewed as more moderate than its southern neighbor. But analysts say right-wing extremism has long had a home north of the U.S. border — and the “Freedom Convoy” movement and related anti-government protests against COVID-19 restrictions have given it new momentum.

A 2015 study identified about 100 far-right extremist groups. The number has tripled since then, Hofmann said.

Larger groups have splintered but the overall number of participants has also grown, Hofmann said.

He and his colleagues have identified about 1,200 visibly active participants who have either had contact with police or the media or have been active on social media, he said.

This is up from previous counts but changing methodologies make comparisons difficult, he said…

Reader Interactions

42Comments

  1. 1.

    different-church-lady

    In the end, they accomplished absolutely nothing besides looping the Beltway, fighting each other, spamming the emergency line, badgering DC residents, & wasting fuel.

    “HOW CAN YOU CALL THAT NOTHING?!?”

  3. 3.

    dmsilev

    Winning!

    Protests, of course, are as common as joggers on the National Mall. Getting passersby to pay attention can be a challenge. On a recent weekday, a small group of young tourists stopped a short distance from the protesters, taking photos with their phones and inching closer for better shots. But the object of their attention wasn’t the people or the flags or the signs. It was an albino squirrel that sat nearby munching on a piece of bread.

    In fairness, the squirrel is undoubtedly more photogenic.

  6. 6.

    Spanky

    As further evidence that there is no God, people who were not part of the Pibble’s Convoy were struck and killed by lightning on the Mall this week.

  10. 10.

    bbleh

    Put yourself in the position of a propagandist for the White Nationalist Party takeover of the US, and ask whether these guys were an asset or a liability.  Did they do more for the Cause by promoting it and showcasing the resentment and frustration (and, uh, folk wisdom) that motivates it, or did they damage the Cause by looking like a bunch of dumb-asses?

    On balance, my money’s on the latter, but maybe I’m just an optimist.

  15. 15.

    Anotherlurker

    These moronic, bible thumping, trucking’ grifters all deserve each other. I can’t imagine a more unappetizing group of people gathered together in one place.

    I know that I’m breaking some rule here, but I think it would be glorious if they started using their beloved 2nd Amendment, only on each other.

    Chastise me.

  17. 17.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    What a bunch of freaks.

    In unhappy news, the actor who played TC in the original Magnum PI, Roger E. Mosley, has died at the age of 83. I was surprised to learn he was 50 when the show ended 1988; he didn’t look it

  19. 19.

    Jackie

    As 1776 is their motto, maybe swapping out their semis for covered wagons would be more appropriate?

  21. 21.

    NotMax

    “The Court finds the word truck nowhere in the Constitution, thus has no option but to impose a ban.”

    //

  23. 23.

    Ken

    @2liberal: Is this a reprint? It was published this week (tomorrow, according to the date) but the interview was on December 17, 2020! (His comment “when Biden takes office” caught my attention.)

  24. 24.

    2liberal

    @Ken:  its from the date on the article, not the current issue.  I did a google search for “tom nichols newport ri” and that is how i found it.

  28. 28.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Danielx:

    I’d pay someone money to ask one of them that. I always think it’s amusing how the mental image conservatives/reactionaries have of themselves almost never matches reality

  32. 32.

    Kent

    @Old Man Shadow:“We’re white and old and scared of everything!”

    That is really the truth.  One thing I have noticed recently is that gun nuts are the most paranoid and fearful people that exist.  Especially the MAGA types.  They are literally afraid of their own shadows.

    Over the past year I have had two elderly uncles die.  The first was your typical right-wing gun nut.  The whole time he was fading away and losing his faculties in the little retirement village home that he and my aunt occupied he was constantly obsessed with his guns.  Terrified that someone might break in and take them, or just terrified that someone might break in and he wouldn’t have them at his bedside.  My cousin had to go through when he was asleep and find all his guns and they found about a dozen stashed all over the place in their little condo.  Then his last days were full of temper tantrums of him wanting his guns back.  No last moments with family or anything.

    My other uncle was an elderly retired public school principal who was a good principled Democrat.  He and my dad would go hunting when they were young but he had long earlier given up hunting for photography and birdwatching and probably sold all his guns in the 1970s.    Despite dying of painful cancer and being on IV painkillers in their home, he was calm, peaceful, and had meaningful last days with all his immediate and some extended family around.

    The difference?  One was gun obsessed and paranoid.  The other was life obsessed and peaceful.

    I really think it is the guns.  They seem to warp minds and instill paranoia.  I don’t know if anyone have ever written about that topic but it is my growing observation.

  33. 33.

    mrmoshpotato

    To quote Wonkette about the NRA:

    WEAK.

    SAD.

    POOP.

     

    To Hell with these shitstains (and the NRA shitstains too).

  34. 34.

    James E Powell

    I know some people who aren’t ignorant, hateful bigots trying to make things worse for other people. I’m sure you all do, too. Apparently the WaPo has no interest in writing about them.

  35. 35.

    bjacques

    There have also been ongoing hostilities with members of another offshoot of the People’s Convoy who have accused the 1776 Restoration Movement of having members who are convicted sex offenders. Riddell said there was a former member of the group who had been convicted of child molestation in Indiana but that that person has left.

    OK groomer

  36. 36.

    Brachiator

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    The character TC was always a likeable guy. Mosley’s obituary at the Hollywood Reporter includes this tidbit.

    The Los Angeles native was busy making movies at the time and didn’t want a job on a television show, but his agent talked him into at least doing the Magnum pilot.
    As Mosley remembered it, his agent told him: ” ‘It’s starring this guy Tom Selleck. Tom Selleck has made about five pilot shows … and none of them has sold. So here’s what you do, Roger: Sign up for the show, go over to Hawaii, they’ll treat you good for the 20 days it will take to shoot the [pilot], you’ll get a lot of money, and then you come home. A show with Tom Selleck always fails, and you’ll be fine.’

    Mosley appears on all 8 seasons of the series.

  38. 38.

    Anonymous At Work

    Canada’s convoy was successful because a lot of former truckers became *former* truckers as a result of the seizure of their big-rigs during the mass arrests and the liquidation of seized assets to pay for damages.  Their American grifter-cousins would never risk actual life, limb or property.

  39. 39.

    Alce_e_ardillo

    “reread the Constitution ”

    I had no idea they could even read– let alone reread…..

  41. 41.

    louc

    Oh, ugh. I walk by this group every Sunday on the Mall. They really could try out for bit parts in a remake of Deliverance. I’ve never seen a more unattractive group of white male specimens in my life.

Comments are closed.