It has been a roller coaster of a ride for the “Freedom Convoy” of truckers in Washington, D.C. The relatively small convoy—which is somehow funded with enough cash to keep those rigs gassed up—has had their feelings hurt by a lack of support as well as having their request for an encampment permit rejected. Their biggest champion so far has been the least-liked person on Capitol HIll, Sen. Ted Cruz. Oh, also, it rained and there was traffic, which totally threw these super masculine patriots off, and they lost a day of good freedom protesting.
On Friday, the trucking crew began anew. They started the day with speeches at their rally point at Hagerstown Speedway in Maryland. They usually begin the day there with speeches about how their demands are being heard. What are those demands? At this point, the demands seem to be to overthrow the government for perceived insults to a percentage of the population that hates having to wear a mask and is terrified of getting a vaccine shot.
This morning’s speech is brought to you by a fellow who identifies himself as a part of a motorcycle outfit. He wouldn’t say the name of the outfit, but he promised he drove a long way to be there.
Saying that “everybody needs to get to D.C. now,” and “not later,” he went on to detail his ideas for the day: “What’s going to happen up there in D.C., Black Lives Matter street, we’re going to take it back.” Okaaaay. The street he seems to referring to is the Black Lives Matter Plaza.
Located along a two-block area of 16th Street NW in Downtown DC, the mural features the words “Black Lives Matter” in 50-foot-tall letters, in yellow and all caps, as well as the flag of the District.
The portion of 16th Street on which the mural is showcased, located just outside of the White House, was officially renamed by Mayor Muriel Bowser as “Black Lives Matter Plaza NW.” The area is open to visitors at any time of the day.
As with most conservative “activism” these days, this biker and his buddies have zeroed in on Black people and are making a statement about how not racist they are by attacking something that brings up the conversation of race and racism in our country. The logic is like a snake eating its tail as it falls into a wormhole, inside of a Möbius strip, within a black hole. The Black Lives Matter “street,” as he puts it, is closed off to vehicular traffic so that people can walk there. It will be interesting to see what he plans on doing.
“All that paint’s coming off that street.” I’m going to say that’s vandalism and borderline a hate crime. “Before I get put in my grave it’s going to get tar and feathered.” Yeah, that’s going to get you fined and arrested. While tarring and feathering isn’t exclusively the domain of old-timey racists, it’s got a history there. That, Mr. Biker-man, may very well elevate the charges against you from vandalizing public property and civil disobedience to hate crimes and the like.
So, before you say anyth—
“And then we’re going to tar and feather all our delegates.”
Oh, my. We could play the “what about” game here and wonder aloud what would happen if this biker guy in his trucker hat and biker leather chaps were someone who looked more like Rep. Ilhan Omar, and she was saying she and her marchers were going to “tar and feather” … anybody. The one silver lining in this clip is that while there seems to be a solid amount of audible support for Mr. Biker guy’s call for people to be at the protest, there’s a lot less audible support once he brings up the idea of defacing a street simply because it has yellow paint on it that says “Black Lives Matter.”
They have loud horns. Hopefully nobody’s infants were taking a nap while these folks were blaring their “freedom” at them.
And because it’s a fun thing to do when thinking about some dark days.
And a reminder of what exactly our country needs to fear domestically:
Check out Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast. This episode features Daily Kos’ own Mark Sumner talking about COVID-19.
