A “freedom convoy” led by MAGA trucker Bob Bolus left Scranton for DC last Wednesday, with smaller numbers than expected.
While originally planned in protest of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, Bolus widened the protest to include other grievances one day before it set out. These grievances included foreign imports and critical race theory.
Earlier last week, Bolus told Fox5DC that his aim was to shut down the Capital Beltway. In actuality, the procession consisted of Bolus’s 18-wheeler (decked out with a large picture of his own face on the side) and eight small pick-up trucks and SUVs behind him, reported Reuters producer Julio-César Chávez.
“There will be a lane open for emergency vehicles, they’ll be able to get in and out and all that,” Bolus told the network prior to leaving for DC. “We will not compromise anybody’s safety or health, one way or the other. As far as if they can’t get to work, geez, that’s too bad.”
Bolus previously compared his protest to a boa constrictor, telling Fox5DC, “That basically squeezes you, chokes you and it swallows you, and that’s what we’re going to do the DC [sic].”
Last Wednesday, after several videos of Bolus’s small procession exploded on Twitter, the Scranton-based trucker retracted this statement, telling The Daily Beast that he and his convoy would not attempt to shut down the Beltway, effectively ending the boa constrictor method before it had begun.
“We’re not putting a chokehold on DC today,” Bolus told the news site shortly after noon on Wednesday. “Not to say that it wouldn’t happen in the very near future. It’s just going to be an idea of what’s to come.”
According to ABC7, the small convoy arrived at the Beltway shortly after 6 pm, after leaving Scranton later than expected due to two flat tires on Bolus’ truck.
While on the Beltway, Bolus and fellow convoy protestor Betsy Green talked with The Daily Beast in a series of phone conversations, admitting their confusion as to what direction to go in, with Green declaring Bolus didn’t “know where the hell he is.”
Green told the news site that this was just “one battle in the war” as the pair searched for I-270 to get back to Scranton.
Bolus said Thursday that, despite smaller than expected numbers, the Biden administration received the message that truckers have the power to shut down the U.S. economy.
“I think we intimidated them. We’ve been recognized worldwide,” Bolus said.
Bolus is not the only protestor who left for the nation’s capital this week. Organizers of another anti-lockdown group, the “People’s Convoy,” left Adelanto County, California, on Wednesday, to make an 11-day journey to DC. They plan to arrive in the beltway area on March 5. In a statement, the group confirmed they will not be going into the DC city limits.
Brian Brase, a co-organizer of the People’s Convoy, said this month that the Facebook page for the protests, “Convoy to D.C. 2022,” was taken down by Facebook when it had just shy of 140,000 people on it.
Facebook removed the group on February 2. In a statement to Fox News, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, said, “We have removed this group for repeatedly violating our policies around QAnon.”
Brase disputed this claim, telling Fox News Digital, “That’s just not true.”
Ahead of the protests, several precautions are being put in place by DC authorities, as well as by Virginia and Maryland State Police.
In a statement, the United States Capitol Police confirmed that they are aware of the protests and are taking measures to “facilitate lawful First Amendment activity.”
The statement also confirmed that the US Capitol Police are collaborating with local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, including the DC National Guard.
According to the National Guard Bureau, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin approved the US Capitol Police’s request for 700 National Guard members to come to DC ahead of the protests.
The National Guard is being employed to assist in traffic control due to potential delays, and will not carry firearms or take part in law enforcement, the National Guard Bureau confirmed.
These convoys follow in the footsteps of the ongoing trucker protests in Canada that caused Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to invoke emergency powers. Similar anti-lockdown protests and demonstrations have been cropping up in cities across the world in recent months.
Feature image, Carolyn Franks/stock.adobe.com
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