A truckers’ convoy, inspired by Canada’s Freedom Convoy, began making its way across the U.S. starting in California on Wednesday. The gro...
A truckers’ convoy, inspired by Canada’s Freedom Convoy, began making its way across the U.S. starting in California on Wednesday.
The group is calling for an end to the COVID-19 mandates and the state of national emergency prompted by the pandemic, which was first declared by then-President Donald Trump in March 2020 and just renewed by President Joe Biden last week.
By Friday afternoon, “The People’s Convoy,” as it has been dubbed, had crossed Arizona on Interstate 40, which parallels much of the old U.S. Route 66, and reached Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The group is posting its progress on Facebook.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that the convoy consisted of dozens of trucks by the time it reached Kingman, Arizona, Wednesday, where the truckers spent their first night.
In video posted Friday that appeared to be on I-40, perhaps outside of Flagstaff — based on the mountains, snow, and evergreens in the shot — the convoy extended as far as the eye could see.
The Peoples Convoy has posted the route they will take on its website. They planned to overnight near the New Mexico/Texas border Friday night and then head on to Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and finally arrive outside Washington, D.C., by Saturday, March 5.
Organizer Mike Landis said in a video posted on the group’s website that the convoy is “about our freedoms as Americans.”
“I have two young sons,” Landis added. “It’s about what their future is going to look like and hopefully my grandchildren’s.”
Landis said that “COVID was an issue in the beginning. Nobody knew what it was.”
However, the time for pandemic restrictions has long since passed, he argued, based on the knowledge available how to effectively treat the sickness.
“We have had the emergency powers enacted, which is in the Constitution,” Landis said. “[W]hen it is enacted, it cancels the Constitution for the duration that it is enacted.”
The National Emergencies Act grants the president, as the nation’s chief executive under the Constitution, the power to declare a state of national emergency.
Landis argued the impact of it is to curtail the freedoms Americans have under the Constitution, like the freedom of speech.
Canadian Prime Minister Justice Trudeau invoked his nation’s Emergencies Act to clear Freedom Convoy truckers who were protesting COVID mandates from Ottawa last week.
He ended the emergency declaration on Wednesday, saying “existing laws and bylaws are now sufficient to keep people safe.”
“What we aim to do at The People’s Convoy is get this emergency powers act revoked,” Landis said, meaning the current use of it in relation to COVID-19.
“There’s no need for it. We can prove it with science through the doctors,” Landis added.
The group seeks to end COVID vaccine mandates.
“You want a vaccine, take it. That’s the whole point of this. It’s about freedom: Your freedom to choose what you feel is best for your life, within the morals and guidelines of our Constitution,” Landis said.
Ron Coleman, 61, a trucker from Reno, Nevada, told Reuters, “This is for our freedoms, our human rights. Enough is enough.”
Biden reportedly will announce in his State of the Union address Tuesday a change in COVID policies, saying the virus is less of a threat now, but the country should not completely return to pre-pandemic norms.
When it arrives in Washington on March 5, The People’s Convoy does not plan to go into the district, but to stay on the Beltway that surrounds the capital city.
Landis encouraged people to continue to join the convoy, regardless of the type of vehicle, or come out and support it as the truckers roll across the country.
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