It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Sunday, February 13, 2022
The American Far Right’s New Target Is the World
What the “Freedom Convoys” Are Really About, And Why It Matters
Around the world, you’ve likely been watching America collapse with a combination of contempt, amusement, and scorn. And you might have thought that it’s just an American problem. Think again. American collapse is coming for you. For your democracy and society, to be precise.
What do I mean by that?
You can’t have failed to see “Freedom Convoys” spring up around the world — “inspired,” they say, by the one in Canada. “Inspiration” is the wrong word, and I’ll come back to that. First, these “convoys” are now happening literally across the globe — from Paris to New Zealand to Germany. More are being called for and planned. What’s really going on here? Have the world’s truckers suddenly decided to rise up in some kind of noble revolution? Of course not.
This is the rise of a so-called “Freedom Movement.” And that “Freedom Movement” is really just another name for American style far-right fanaticism and extremism. America is now spreading its hateful and poisonous far-right fanaticism spreading around the globe — and its aim is to destabilise global democracy.
Before I get into what all that means precisely, let me explain why it matters much more than you think.
There is a very, very big difference between what the “Freedom Convoys” of the “Freedom Movement” are and a legitimate protest. A legitimate protest aims to be heard by democracy. It is an attempt to have what political scientists call “voice.”
These actions of the “Freedom Movement” are not like that. Their explicit aim is to shut down the government. In Canada, for example, the far right is occupying Ottawa, and blockading the main trade routes into the country. This is not a protest — it’s a blockade and an occupation. Its aim isn’t voice, to be heard. It is to bring the gears of government to a grinding halt. That’s not my opinion — the agitators involved in this action have already demanded an audience with Canada’s Governor General, to dismiss the democratically elected government.
Can you think of another event like this? I can, and you should be able to as well (though if can’t think of the one I’m about tell you, I don’t blame you, because you’re probably not American). Think of Jan 6th in America. What happened that day? America’s far right still paints it as a legitimate protest — because of the Big Lie that the “election was stolen.” But it was not a regular protest at all. Far right agitators converged on Capitol Hill — America’s seat of government — and their explicit aim was to shut down the government.
See the parallels with what’s happening in Canada? They should be chillingly clear. These are not protests. They are organized actions deliberately aimed at destroying democracy. In Jan 6th’s case, the idea was to stop electoral votes from being counted. In Canada’s case currently, it’s to chip away at the legitimacy and power of government, to intimidate and bully it into submission. In either case, the aim is the same: to stop democracy from working.
I really, really want you to understand how different this is from a normal, regular protest. Think of anything, a strike for labour rights, women’s rights marches, civil rights demonstrations. The point of all of those is for democracy to work better. It is not to stop democracy from working. These actions that are spreading around the world, in other words, are the opposite of “protests” in a healthy democracy. The far right actions which are spreading around the globe are much more like mini Jan 6ths than protests — little coups aimed at destabilising democracy and bringing it to a screeching halt, for as long as hard as possible.
Even if that’s only a few days, or hours, that’s a significant victory. Because it paves the way for worse. That is what happened in America — it’s the vicious circle of democratic collapse.
So in what sense is all this American? Well, let’s start over now that we can talk more intelligently and precisely.
What’s really happening in Canada? The far right is literally occupying its capitol and blockading its main trade routes. Think about that for a second, because when I put it like that, the stakes should immediately become clear to you, how real and severe they are. Imagine that happening in, say, France, Germany, Sweden. That is what the American far right wants now — and it is not just “inspiring” local far right movements — it’s doing something much, much worse than that.
What’s happening in Canada isn’t “inspired” by America. It’s organized by America. It’s funded by America. And it’s coordinated by America. Yes, really. How so? Let’s go through each one. It isn’t just that the “Freedom Convoy” is organized on Facebook, which is an American company, it’s that far right wing American figures literally have played key roles in making it happen. It isn’t just that the far right in America applauds it — it’s that it encourages it to spread, incites it, eggs it on. And the far right in America is who has provided the money for the agitators occupying Ottawa to enjoy not just hot meals, but saunas and bouncy castles.
These are a tiny fringe of working class people. They don’t have the money — much less the organisation — to do all that on their own. The bouncy castles and saunas and hot meals — not to mention the way they can take large amounts of time away from work to occupy a city — are precisely because this is a sophisticated action, carefully organized, funded, and coordinated. In case you don’t believe me, the Canadian agitators know how to evade police, how to avoid arrest, by, for example, carrying water in jerry cans back and forth. This action has its own supply lines for food, heat, and money — it’s something much, much more like a planned military campaign than a spontaneous protest by students or doctors or women.
Think about that, too, for a moment. America’s far right is who is behind the occupation of Canada’s capital and the blockade of its major trade routes. It’s who has provided the money, the impetus, the ideas, the planning. Without it? Those supply lines and bouncy castles and saunas and hot meals wouldn’t exist. Without it, nobody much would have probably blockaded trade routes and occupied Canada’s capital in the most deliberately extreme way possible — because, frankly, none of this is very Canadian. What it is is very American, to be this obnoxious, extreme, aggressive, hostile, if not outright violent.
So what does it say that America’s far right has already helped organize, fund, and coordinate the occupation of a foreign capital and the blockade of its trade routes? To destabilise its democracy?
What it says is that it’s now it’s time for a little perspective. It shouldn’t be a shock. Let me put it in context for you. The American right has never been a friend of democracy around the globe. It has always been OK with destabilising foreign democracies. Only Europeans and Canadians haven’t thought about it that way, because the democracies which America’s right has destabilised have been in poorer (and less white) countries. And the institutions doing the destabilisation have been the CIA and whatnot.
But this tradition is one on America — interfering with foreign democracies, trying to end them. Let’s do a few examples. Chile had a democratically elected government, and America backed a fascist militia which ended up sending death squads to roam the streets. That pattern repeated itself around the globe. From Latin America to Southeast Asia and beyond, America’s right has repeatedly tried to destabilise democracy — and it’s succeeded.
So far, you’re not very worried, because you might think, so what? Those are poor countries! They’re not like us!
Why? Now comes the part that should worry you. America destabilised all those democracies around the globe because they were social democracies. America didn’t want them to be social democracies. That is why it installed fascist dictators and backed fascist militias from Afghanistan to Nicaragua. America wanted hard right wing governments — and that is what it got.
Let me put that another way. America wouldn’t permit social democracy to flourish anywhere in the world. Except for three places. Europe, Canada, and Australia slash New Zealand. That was it. What did all those nations have in common? Well, they were relatively rich and white. So they were allowed to be — grudgingly — by America’s right wing, which has always controlled most of its government — to be social democracies.
That age seems now to be coming to an end.
The new right wing in America is not like the old one. It is much, much more extreme. You’ve known that, as a citizen of the world, in the way that Trump, for example, was far more extreme, hostile, aggressive, brutish, politically right wing, than even George W Bush. But you might not have thought through what it means for you. What it means for you is this.
The new American right wing is far, far more right, far more extreme. The old one didn’t want social democracy in the “rest of the world,” but permitted it, grudgingly, in Canada, Europe, and the Pacific Rim. But because the new American right is more extreme, what it means that the American right is more extreme, is that it doesn’t want social democracy anywhere.
Not Canada. Not Europe. Not the Pacific Rim. It does not want social democracy to exist.
That is why figures you might not have heard of, or only heard of in passing, back the “Freedom Movement” and the “Freedom Convoys.” Think of, say, Tucker Carlson — he’s America’s most famous far right wing pundit, with a nightly audience of millions on Fox. Think of a new wave of politicians like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert or Josh Hawley. Hawley’s famous for making a white supremacist salute in public. MJT and Boebert are famous for threatening left wing politicians like AOC with overt and explicit violence.
You might have heard of them and laughed, and not really cared. But now you should, because they are the ones explicitly and aggressively backing the “Freedom Movement” and “Freedom Convoys.” And they have real power. When a Tucker Carlson calls on Americans to back all that, they pour millions in donations. When far right wing American politicians praise these movements and actions, their followers get on Facebook, and provide expertise, planning and help.
The result is already the occupation of a major foreign capitol, and the blockade of its trade routes. In other words, this is not a joke. It is already having real world consequences. It’s having consequences because of the big picture, which I think it’s very, very important that you see. This American right is far, far more extreme, and what it’s extremism means for foreign policy is that it doesn’t want social democracy to exist anywhere.
So now, destabilising nations like Canada and France and Germany and New Zealand is on the table. It’s not just poor, brown countries like Nicaragua and Chile and Afghanistan that America’s right aims to destabilize. Now it’s fair game to destabilise even rich, white, European and Western social democracies — because that is what “the American right has gotten far more extreme” means when it comes to foreign relations.
And this is all just the beginning. Because the truth is that right now, the Democrats in America — the center-left — are still clinging to power. But they will lose, because America will not stop collapsing. American collapse is baked into its socioeconomics: America is a rich country which became poor, and cataclysmic socioeconomic shocks like that inevitably cause fascist-authoritarian political collapses, as people are seduced by the Big Lies of demagogues, which find scapegoats for the woes of the pure of blood and true of faith, who are painted as long-suffering heroes and Nietzschean ubermensch.
The American far-right’s newest scapegoat is global democracy. Global social democracy, to be precise. That is why it is aiming a dagger at Canada. Precisely because it is out of scapegoats — having already scapegoated everyone in could in America, from Black people to Mexicans to Latinos to Jews — and because the most obvious and convenient next target is the prosperous, thriving, sane, kind, gentle social democracy next door.
What do fascists hate most? Equality. Justice. Gentleness. Kindness. Truth. All the very things Canada is renowned for. And Europe. All the very things which social democracy aims to provide as basics to all. That is why global social democracy is emerging as the American far right’s next great scapegoat, target. That is why the gloves are off now, and even rich, Western nations are targets to be destabilised by America’s far right, just like Canada is now.
It will only get worse from here. Because as the Democrats lose, the far right in America will gain even more power. Real power. Remember who destabilised democracy around the globe in poor countries? Many of the mechanisms were the same — fake protests, propaganda, radicalization. But the institutions doing it were the CIA and various other shady government agencies, not to mention America’s politicians. That is what the future holds now. As demagogues like MJT and Hawley and so forth gain real political power over America’s institutions, as Trump is resurgent, the world’s Western social democracies will find themselves in America’s cross-hairs. They will be subject, probably, to intense campaigns of destabilisation which are government funded and led.
If you think that can’t happen, remember that under Reagan, America was so intent on funding fascist paramilitaries in Latin America that it flooded its own cities with crackto get the guns to the fascists in exchange. That’s how far right wing America really is. Now imagine how much more right wing it is today, and what happens when lunatics like this gain real power.
The picture, in other words, isn’t rosy. It is one of global geopolitical realignment. That’s an anodyne term. What it means is this. As a collapsing America swing harder right than it’s ever been in modern post-war history, what foreign policy and foreign relations are going to mean is going to change radically. Even rich Western nations will not be allowed to social democracies, the way they grudgingly were in the post-war era. Instead, America’s far right will try to destabilise them — it already is, after all. And the more power it has, the more it will use.
You might think that’s an exaggeration, because you don’t understand how bad things are in America. They are so bad that everyday soccer moms and dads have been so fully radicalised that they threaten to shoot up their neighbourhood schools. Over what? Over the issue, ostensibly, of “mask wearing.” Of course, it’s not about that at all: it’s a cipher for “my kid has pure blood! Only subhumans have to wear masks!!” In other words, America is becoming a genuinely fascist society. This radicalisation proceeds at an everyday level — millions upon millions of Americans believe the Big Lies that the election was stolen, back mass violence to “take it back,” support banning books and theories, are overtly in favour of supremacy. Death threats aimed at local officials by who were formerly everyday people are commonplace. Guns abound and a hardened, radicalised populace itches to use them. The politics of violence, intimidation, and brutality are now normalized, and democracy ideals of equality and truth and justice have little hold over the average person at all anymore.
America is collapsing. You must not underestimate what that means for you. Things are not going to be like before. America has long been a kind of friend to the Western world’s democracies — the bully who’s their buddy. It’s let them be what they wanted, even if that thing, a social democracy, was something it wouldn’t permit anyone else to be. Think for a moment of how America gave Europe the Marshall Plan’s billions — while stopping Asia and Latin America from being social democracies at that very moment. See the double standard?
But that age is now coming to an end. This new America, fascist America, far right wing America? It doesn’t want anyone to be a social democracy, a civilized nation, a modern society, a democracy at all. Not even rich Western nations. That is why it’s far fight wing is already attacking other Western nations, and doing it successfully. To the point that Canada’s capital is occupied, and its trade routes blockaded. You see, the rest of the rich world doesn’t understand. Europe and Canada are kind, gentle, wise nations, for the most part full of warm and friendly people. They don’t understand how aggressive and hostile and brutal and violent Americans really are. But that is what America is radicalising Canadians and Europeans to be. It is what it wants their countries to become: mirror images of a collapsing, radicalized, fascist America, so that America is in control of their destinies, too, controlling their resources, labour, capital, choices.
Canadian “Freedom Convoy” opposes all mask and vaccination mandates and is rife with far right white supremacists. Photo from Business Insider
This article was written for L’Anticapitaliste, the weekly newspaper of the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) of France.
[Feb. 9, 2020] Truckers in a so-called “Freedom Convoy” have led protests of hundreds and sometimes thousands in several Canadian cities against pandemic health regulations such as vaccine mandates and testing. The convoy represents a significant movement by the country’ growing far right, one that parallels and is influenced by right-wingers South of their border led by Donald Trump.
In fact, Donald Trump issued a statement calling Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of the Liberal Party a “far left lunatic” who had “destroyed Canada with insane COVID mandates.” Trump supported the Canadian Freedom Convoy and suggested that truckers in the United States emulate it and bring the protest to Washington, D.C.
The Freedom Convoy criticizes Trudeau as responsible for the health policies they oppose. In a press conference Trudeau pointed out that 90 percent of truckers, like all Canadians, are vaccinated and that the Freedom Convoy represents a “small, fringe minority.”
At the center of the protest is a Canadian law that requires truckers returning from the United States, where the COVID runs rampant, to isolate for fourteen days. As in the United States, amongst those protesting the mandates one finds racist opponents of foreign immigrants. Some carried the Canadian flag but others the American Gadsden “Don’t Tread On Me” flag commonly carried in rightwing protests in the United States, and some swastikas.
“I wholeheartedly and unreservedly deplore and denounce what is happening in Ottawa with the so-called Freedom Convoy right now,” said Conservative Senator Dennis Patterson. “Let me be clear: If you go about waving a Nazi or Confederate flag, you are declaring yourself a person who embraces hate, bigotry, and racism,” Patterson resigned from the Conservative Caucus and because of its support for the protests.
Protests have involved hundreds of trucks, even earth moving equipment, and protestors also encampments, blocking major city thoroughfares in Ottawa, the capital of Canada.
“It’s not a protest anymore. It’s become an occupation,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford of the Progressive Conservative Party said, “It’s time for this to come to an end.”
Freedom Convoy also protested in cities in Quebec, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and British Columbia. Through GoFundMe the Convoy raised 10 million in Canadian dollars, but GoFundMe has seized the funds because of the group’s violent protests.
Truckers, who usually own their own trucks, represent the classic lower-middle class base of many rightwing movements. They are and consider themselves to be small businesspeople, though their earning and working conditions are often not much different than wage earners. In times like these, facing an unstable economy, higher fuel costs, and government restrictions, some have taken to the streets.
Six years ago, when I went to speak to a U.S.-Canada transportation workers convention, I was surprised to find a few Trump followers among them. Today in Canada, rightwing sentiment has grown. When Trump banned Syrian refugees in 2017, 25 percent of Canadians said that their country should have done the same. In 2018-19, a Yellow Vests movement in Canada attracted tens of thousands of followers on Facebook and organized small protests against a carbon tax, opposed oil pipelines, and stood against United Nations “globalists.” Their ranks were riddled with white supremacists, anti-Semites and anti-immigrant racists.
While Canada has a growing rightwing movement, it still represents a small portion of the population. Canada has strong labor and left traditions, and the left has criticized and organized to resist the Freedom Convoy. In Toronto hundreds of masked health workers protested against the convoy carrying signs reading “Health Not Hate.” In Vancouver, British Columbia, protestors actually blocked the Freedom Convoy. U.S. and Canadian leftist will have to work together to stop the growth of this new right.
Because I follow a handful of Canadian-based professors on Twitter, I have been following the recent protests whereby people driving big rig trucks have been clogging bridges and roads, ostensibly in protest of vaccination requirements, out of the corner of my eye. Recent revelations make it rather clear that the protests aren’t organic.
NYT (“Despite Court Order, Canada Protesters Are Still Blocking Key Border Bridge“):
Hours after a court ordered demonstrators to stop blocking access to the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ontario, protesters were still there late Friday night, but in lesser numbers. Police officers were standing by but had made no move to clear the area of demonstrators.
The injunction from Chief Justice Geoffrey Morawetz of the Ontario Superior Court was meant to open a way for traffic to move freely across the bridge, which carries roughly a third of U.S.-Canada trade, and which has been blocked for days by protesters.
The court ruling, which took effect at 7 p.m., was part of a flurry of legal activity Friday as officials struggled to contain protests that began in Ottawa two weeks ago, when loosely organized groups of truck drivers and others converged on the capital to protest vaccination requirements for truckers entering Canada. The demonstrations have swelled into a broader battle cry, largely from right-wing groups, against pandemic restrictions and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s handling of the pandemic.
The protesters have blocked roads leading to the U.S. border at four points — Windsor; Sarnia, Ontario; Emerson, Manitoba; and Coutts, Alberta.
[…]
Earlier in the day, Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, declared the state of emergency for the province, and the police in Ottawa braced for thousands of protesters to arrive for a third consecutive weekend.
If protesters do not leave peacefully, “there will be consequences, and they will be severe,” Mr. Ford said, adding, “Your right to make a political statement does not outweigh the right of thousands of workers to make a living.”
He said the maximum penalty for noncompliance with provincial orders would be $100,000 and a year in prison, plus potentially the revocation of personal and commercial licenses.
Mr. Trudeau weighed in on the crisis on Friday, saying that the best outcome would be for the protesters to “decide for themselves that they’ve been heard, that they have expressed their frustrations and disagreements, and that it is now time to go home.”
But because they haven’t done so, there will be “an increasingly robust police intervention,” Mr. Trudeau said at a news conference in Ottawa. He added, “This blockade of our economy that is hurting Canadians countrywide, Canadians who have been impacted by these blockades — this conflict must end.”
Automakers have been particularly affected by the partial shutdown of the Ambassador Bridge, which links Windsor and Detroit. Trucks cross it thousands of times a day carrying $300 million worth of goods, about a third of which are related to the auto industry. The blockades have left carmakers short of crucial parts, forcing companies to shut down some plants from Ontario to Alabama on Friday.
The Teamsters union — which represents 15,000 long-haul truck drivers in Canada, but generally not the ones protesting — denounced the blockade, which threatens thousands of jobs.
WaPo (“State of emergency kicks in as Ottawa braces for third straight weekend of ‘Freedom Convoy’ protests“):
Canada’s capital was bracing Saturday for an influx of anti-government and anti-vaccine mandate protesters for a third straight weekend, while demonstrators partially blocking a vital U.S.-Canada border crossing defied an injunction ordering them to leave.
Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly told reporters Friday that intelligence suggested the total number of trucks and demonstrators would be similar to that of last weekend, when about 5,000 people and 1,000 trucks flooded the city.
“Our message to you is: Do not come,” he said. “And if you do commit unlawful acts, there will be consequences.”
It was one of several warnings issued Friday to protesters of the self-styled “Freedom Convoy,” which has paralyzed the capital city. Protesters have blockaded several U.S.-Canada border crossings, including the Ambassador Bridge, a key trade corridor linking Windsor, Ontario, to Detroit, and inspired similar protests abroad.
[…]
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has previously ruled out mobilizing the military to break up the protesters, on Friday vowed an “increasingly robust police intervention,” adding: “Everything is on the table, because this unlawful activity has to end, and it will end.”
None of this seemed to perturb the protesters, who have also targeted border crossings in Manitoba and Alberta, as well as Sarnia in Ontario. As the court deadline passed at 7 p.m. Friday, the number of protesters diminished at the Ambassador Bridge, but many chose to defy the order, chanting “freedom,” waving flags, singing the national anthem and voting among themselves to stay put.
[…]
The convoy started as a protest against U.S. and Canadian rules requiring truckers crossing the border to be fully vaccinated. But it has grown into a broader movement against pandemic restrictions — which are mostly imposed by the provinces — and the Trudeau government.
Officials have noted that 90 percent of Canadian truck drivers are fully vaccinated. The Canadian Trucking Alliance, a main industry group, has distanced itself from the protests. Many of the key organizers are not truckers but figures in fringe extremist and anti-government groups. Some protesters have flown Confederate flags or flags with swastikas on them, while some Ottawa residents say they’ve been intimidated, subjected to racist vitriol and harassed for wearing masks.
[…]
Protesters have tapped into broader pandemic fatigue and benefited in part from foreign support. Trudeau said Friday after a call with President Biden that at least 50 percent of fundraising for the convoy on some websites has originated from the United States.
Right-wing political figures in the United States continued to express support for the Canadian demonstrators. “Civil disobedience is a time-honored tradition in our country,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), in an interview with the conservative website Daily Signal. He added: “I hope the truckers do come to America.”
Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) chimed in on Friday in a tweet that criticized vaccine mandates and Trudeau, who has called the protests unlawful. “You know what’s unlawful? Forcing private businesses close their doors,” said the lawmaker, who also incorrectly referred to the vaccines as “experimental.” (Coronavirus vaccine shots that have completed clinical trials and been approved by regulators are not experimental.)
NBC News (“As U.S. ‘trucker convoy’ picks up momentum, foreign meddling adds to fray“):
There is growing momentum in the U.S. anti-vaccination community to conduct rallies similar to Canada’s “Freedom Convoy” that has paralyzed Ottawa, Ontario, and the effort is receiving a boost from a familiar source: overseas content mills.
Some Facebook groups that have promoted American “trucker convoys” similar to demonstrations that have clogged roads in Ottawa are being run by fake accounts tied to content mills in Vietnam, Bangladesh, Romania and several other countries, Facebook officials told NBC News on Friday.
The groups have popped up as extremism researchers have begun to warn that many anti-vaccine and conspiracy-driven communities in the U.S. are quickly pivoting to embrace and promote the idea of disruptive convoys.
Researchers at Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy first noted that large pro-Trump groups had been changing their names to go with convoy-related themes earlier this week. Grid News reported on Friday that one major trucker convoy Facebook group was being run by a Bangladesh content farm.
Many of the groups have changed names multiple times, going from those that tap hot-button political issues such as support for former President Donald Trump or opposition to vaccine mandates, to names with keywords like “trucker,” “freedom” and “convoy.” Facebook allows groups on its platforms to change names but tracks the changes in each page’s “about” section.
The motivations of the people behind the content mills are not clear, but Joan Donovan, director of the Shorenstein Center, said the pattern fits existing efforts to make money off U.S. political divisions.
“In some ways, it’s normal political activity,” Donovan said. “In other ways, we have to look at how some of the engagement online is fake but can be a way to mobilize more people.”
“When we see really effective disinformation campaigns, it’s when the financial and political motives align,” she added.
The groups frequently directed users away from Facebook toward websites that sold pro-Trump and anti-vaccine merchandise, a spokesperson for Meta, the parent company of Facebook, said. The spokesperson noted that the majority of the content posted in these groups came from real accounts and that the company has removed the groups tied to foreign content mills.
“Voicing opposition to government mandates is not against Meta’s policies,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “However, we have removed multiple groups and Pages for repeatedly violating our policies prohibiting QAnon content and those run by spammers in different countries around the world. We continue to monitor the situation and take action.”
The whole thing is bizarre. On the one hand, it’s hard to imagine a person whose vaccination status poses a lower threat to society than a dude riding by himself in the cabin of a giant truck for twelve hours a day ferrying car parts. On the other, some 10.34 billion doses of the various COVID vaccines have been administered at this point; that people are still wigging out about safety makes no sense.
Regardless, free people have a right to protest government mandates they disagree with. They do not, however, have a right to block thoroughfares and stop their fellow citizens from exercising their rights to travel and engage in commerce. Truckers banding together to refuse to haul cargo until the requirement is rescinded is peaceful protest. This is simply criminal conduct.
The so-called “freedom convoy” is nominally protesting a vaccine mandate for truckers, implemented in mid-January on both sides of the US-Canada border. But the demonstrations have swiftly ballooned into a broader far-right movement, with some demonstrators waving Confederate and Nazi flags. Protester demands include an end to all Covid-19 restrictions in Canada and the resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
We do need to be careful in these characterizations. Some number of crazies will naturally attempt to glom onto any significant protest movement. While organizers have some responsibility to disassociate themselves, there’s only so much one can do.
Still, Max Fischer reports for NYT, it certainly seems like more than that.
The truck convoy protests in Ottawa and several provincial capitals represent an unexpected show of strength for the far right and populist right factions at their helm.
Those movements have, in years past, not made nearly as many inroads to the mainstream as their American and European counterparts have.
It is too soon to say, political experts caution, whether this indicates that the right-wing populist wave has now fully arrived in Canada.
But the protests’ sudden surge, coming amid a wider backlash to pandemic-related restrictions, illuminates the far right’s unique and potentially changing role in Canadian political and cultural life, as well as the challenges and opportunities facing it.
“The biggest misconception about this, even within Canada, is that extremists have infiltrated the movement,” said Stephanie Carvin, a former national security official in Canada who now teaches at Carleton University.
In reality, she added, “this was an extremist movement that got mainstream attention.”
The organizers are mostly fringe activists, rather than truck drivers, an overwhelming majority of whom are vaccinated.
‘Freedom convoy’ shows how Trump has turned GOP into ‘the party of trolling’: MSNBC analyst John Wright February 12, 2022 Freedom Convoy Canada (AFP)
Support for the anti-vaxx, anti-government Canadian "freedom convoy" among Republican U.S. lawmakers shows how the GOP has become a "Trumpian cult" that cares about nothing but "trouble-making," according to MSNBC analyst David Corn.
"I think the Republican Party has become just the party of trolling," Corn said Saturday during a segment about the ongoing protests north of the border. "It's not about legislation. It's not about ideas. ... There's something crazy going on in Canada that they can then export here."
Noting that U.S. automakers have lost tens of millions of dollars due to the protests, Corn said: "Do they care that jobs are being cut at these places? Do they care that car prices are going up? ... Do they care about the American consumer?"
"What is it that they really want?" he added. "What is the agenda here for (Sens.) Rand Paul or Ted Cruz other than to just say, 'Hey, we want to throw a punch in the nose of scientists and public health officials!' I guess the bottom line is that, 'You're not the boss of me!' That seems to be the motto of the Republican Party — 'You're not the boss of me!' And with (Fox News hosts) Tucker Carlson and Lauren Inghram, I think they just want to fire up the flames. ... What do you think Fox ratings would be like if there were trucker convoys and shutdowns and occupations here in the United States? It would be great TV for them. They would love it. That's I think why they want to see this happen here."
"There's something about this Trumpian cult," Corn said. "They are in favor of disruptions. I'm not even sure there's a policy component to it. They're not in favor of an agenda. They're in favor of the noise. They're in favor of the trouble, and this is what Trump has done to our politics: He's made trolling and troublemaking and shouting the main objectives of it, so you see Republicans here looking for the next big thing. They're latching on to the truckers, but do they really want the truckers to shut down the Super Bowl tomorrow? That would be the most un-American thing I can think of."
Convoy Movement Isn’t a Struggle Over Freedom, It’s an Attempt to Kill Democracy
Protestors and supporters set up at a blockade at the foot of the Ambassador Bridge, sealing off the flow of commercial traffic over the bridge into Canada from Detroit, on February 10, 2022, in Windsor, Canada.
The “Freedom Convoy” movement, consisting of hundreds of trucks, has ground to a halt the busiest border crossing between Canada and the United States and occupied Ottawa, Canada’s capital, effectively blockading the city and disrupting daily life for most residents in the core of the city. The convoy participants reject all vaccine requirements and mandates and support a decidedly anti-government discourse reminiscent of far-right ideology in the United States.
The convoy participants lack the support of the general public, which is largely vaccinated. They also lack the support of most Canadian truckers, 90 percent of whom are vaccinated, and of the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA).
The truckers are endorsed largely by leading U.S. Republicans such as Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, along with some Canadian conservative politicians. Support has also come from powerful anti-democratic social media figures such as Tucker Carlson, Jordan Peterson and Elon Musk, and an array of white supremacist groups. Some of the more powerful right-wing groups in Canada include Action4Canada, which makes the false and conspiracy-riddled claim that the COVID-19 pandemic “was carried out, at least in part, by Bill Gates and a ‘New World (Economic) Order’ to facilitate the injection of 5G-enabled microchips into the population.” With the help of the social media, support for the Freedom Convoy protests snowballed globally with upcoming convoys being planned for the United States, France and all 27 European countries. The Freedom Convoy protests is the brainchild of James Bauder, who heads the Canada Unity movement, which launched the protests. Bauder believes in multiple baseless conspiracy theories and “has endorsed the QAnon movement and called Covid-19 ‘the biggest political scam in history.’” Bauder is no friend of organized labor and, as Jacobin has noted, two years ago he participated in another convoy called United We Roll that “planned an anti-union protest where convoy members threatened to dismantle the picket line and run over workers.”
Other leaders in the movement include some hard right extremists such as Patrick King who, according to The Conversation, once “stated that he believes the vaccine was created to ‘depopulate’ the white race.” Another convoy leader named B.J. Dichter has a reputation for spreading Islamophobic sentiments.
The Canadian Anti-Hate Network, a nonprofit group, has reported that “The so-called ‘Freedom Convoy’ was organized by known far-right figures who have espoused Islamophobic, anti-Semitic and other hateful views.”
The Ottawa protests have made clear that extreme elements supporting fascism and white nationalism are attracted to the movement, and visible in the appearance of neo-Nazi and Confederate flags and an abundance of QAnon logos emblazoned on trucks, signs and stickers. Moreover, some sources are suggesting that a significant amount of funding, over $8 million as of February 7, may have come from right-wing sources in the United States. Some of the highest individual donations have come from American billionaires. Funding from the states has so alarmed members of the New Democratic Party that they have called it “an attack on Canada’s democracy” and have asked the U.S. ambassador “to testify before the House of Commons foreign affairs committee.
Jagmeet Singh, the leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party, has stated that this is more than a protest movement. On the contrary, he argues that “the convoy’s stated intent is to “overthrow the government.” The convoy association “with hate groups … expressing racist and anti-immigrant sentiments … could explain why the Freedom Convoy is strangely silent on labor issues facing immigrant truckers who now make up over one-third of truckers in Canada,” writes Emily Leedham in Jacobin. She further notes “that many of the concerns of the protesters have little to do with workers’ rights or labor issues within Canada’s trucking industry. In fact, Convoy organizers have previously harassed workers on the picket line and ignored calls for support from racialized truckers fighting against wage theft.”
Freedom, once again, has been hijacked in the interest of a counter-revolution whose purpose is to destroy the authority of the government to protect the common good, limit the influence of the financial and corporate elite, and protect civic structures crucial to a democracy. The Ottawa truckers are motivating right-wing convoy movements across the globe and their growing influence makes clear that they are winning the global information war.
Indeed, it is not just convoy movements that are increasingly subverting the concept of freedom in the service of right-wing extremism across the globe. From the United States and Brazil to Turkey and Hungary, anti-democratic actors are reducing freedom to the realm of unchecked self-interest, a rejection of the welfare state and a flight from social responsibility. In the process, they are waging a war on democracy.
Removed from the discourse of the common good, equality and social rights, individual freedom now aligns with the mob — positioning itself with those willing in the age of the pandemic to sacrifice other people’s lives in the name of a bogus appeal to personal rights.
While former President Donald Trump has been the most prominent figure in maligning individual freedom as a vehicle for embracing a fascist politics and the discourse of hate and violence, his endorsement of authoritarianism in the name of freedom has legitimated anti-democratic acts across the globe. Not only has this movement become a flashpoint for global far-right protests, it has also developed a massive social media presence in which, as Politico has reported, the convoy movement has promoted the idea that “efforts to keep people safe from the coronavirus are, instead, anti-democratic restrictions on individual freedoms.”
Elisabeth Anker argues that the right wing in the United States is increasingly using the language of “ugly freedoms” to promote an “anti-democratic politics [that] threatens to overtake freedom’s meaning entirely, harnessing freedom solely to projects of exclusion, privilege and harm.” She writes:
‘Ugly freedoms’ [are] used to block the teaching of certain ideas, diminish employees’ ability to have power in the workplace and undermine public health. These are not merely misunderstood freedoms, or even just a cynical use of the language of freedom to frame bigoted policies. They manifest, instead, a particular interpretation of freedom that is not expansive, but exclusionary and coercive.
This notion of “ugly freedom” is certainly applicable to the convoy movement. Lost in its neoliberal view of freedom is any notion of an “inclusive freedom” that contests authoritarian and anti-democratic modes of suppression such as the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a financial elite, the rise of the punishing state, mass poverty, the rise of war culture, ecological devastation, and the criminalization of social problems such as homelessness. Convoy protesters are silent regarding a notion of inclusive freedom — one that would argue for universal health care, expanding workers’ unions, introducing regulations that ensure worker safety and paid sick days, and the need for social and wage benefits for unemployed workers. Under this form of capitalism, freedom is hollowed out, removed from any sense of social solidarity, forcing individuals to bear full responsibility for the problems they confront even though they are not of their own making. As Zygmunt Bauman rightly observes, existential insecurity is intensified as “individuals are now eft to find and practice individual solutions to socially produced troubles … while being equipped with tools and resources that are blatantly inadequate to the task.”
The dangers of unchecked individualism cannot be separated from struggles over freedom, especially as it becomes a rationale for undermining human dependency, the common good and support for mutual solidarity. Freedom when wedded to neoliberal notions of individualism undermines human bonds and makes solidarity difficult to both recognize and practice. This danger has become clear as the appeal to freedom in the convoy movement is used as a call to resistance to COVID-19 vaccination efforts and mask mandates — a tactic which is code for an allegiance to the political right. Vaccine scientist Peter Hotez adds to this position, arguing that for the most part, the anti-vax, freedom-at-all-cost movement engages in “anti-science aggression” and “is a component of authoritarian rule [cultivated by] their own cadre of pseudo intellectuals.” Hotez makes clear that the appeal to freedom to buttress an anti-vax, anti-science movement has fueled its degeneration into a “killing force.” One can clearly apply this analysis to the convoy movement.
What Hotez and other critics of the anti-vax movement, including the convoy protests, miss is how neoliberalism remakes the social into the biographical, further convincing individuals that they have no obligation to contribute to the health, safety and democratic institutions that shape the wider community. Those who support the convoy movement have lost sight of the relationship between liberty and the greater good. The convoy movement is not a struggle over freedom, it is an attempt to destroy democracy in the name of freedom.
Henry A. Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies Department and is the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy. His most recent books include: American Nightmare: Facing the Challenge of Fascism (City Lights, 2018); The Terror of the Unforeseen (Los Angeles Review of books, 2019), On Critical Pedagogy, 2nd edition (Bloomsbury, 2020); Race, Politics, and Pandemic Pedagogy: Education in a Time of Crisis (Bloomsbury 2021); and Pedagogy of Resistance: Against Manufactured Ignorance (Bloomsbury 2022). Giroux is also a member of Truthout’s Board of Directors.
