Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 01:47 pm
Fox News and Steve Bannon hyped the D.C. trucker convoy for weeks, but just 12 protesters showed up to block Biden’s SOTU.
Here is what it looked like at the rally site:
Wow, this huge ‘Freedom Convoy’ trucker rally in DC is lit. Really making a bold statement. Three weeks of hype from Steve Bannon every day. For this? From @FordFischer pic.twitter.com/UQDLAqdSSq
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— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) March 1, 2022
The Daily Beast reported that the protest drew a dozen people, “Despite the initial hefty estimate that upwards of 3,000 attendees would show, only 12 rally-goers had actually assembled for the gathering just hours ahead of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address Tuesday evening.”
There were signs early on that the trucker convoy was not going to happen. Some truckers started out for D.C. but got stuck in traffic, so they turned around and went home. Others got lost on the way to D.C. and also gave up and went home.
The bubble has popped on the trucker protests for a couple of reasons. States have been rolling back their pandemic policies and lifting their mask mandates as COVID cases have declined. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine knocked the truckers out of the news cycle, and without media coverage hyping it up, the right-wingers moved on to a new distraction.
The truckers that Republicans hoped would embarrass President Biden during his first State Of The Union never showed up. The only people who were humiliated were the Republicans hoping for chaos.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
