Well, another arm of the trucker convoy protest effort in the U.S. that has been unfolding in connection to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address that was set for this Tuesday night has fizzled out. Kyle Sefcik organized an in-person event in Washington, D.C., for Tuesday afternoon, initially indicating to federal authorities in his effort to secure a permit that some 3,000 people would “hopefully” be attending. Although he lowered his expectations before the event started, at almost noon Eastern Time Tuesday, reporter Zachary Petrizzo found some 10 people there for Sefcik’s event — and, at least at the time, that was it. About an hour later, Sefcik was angrily asking “Where are the trucks!? Where are the trucks!?” according to Petrizzo, at which point there still hadn’t been any trucks show up, apparently. Later, Sefcik ranted that he “lost money” on the event.
The fate of Sefcik’s event mirrors what happened to a couple of other trucker convoy protests in recent days. A so-called convoy organized by Scranton, Pennsylvania truck driver Bob Bolus ended up with just a single 18-wheeler in the whole group alongside few other vehicles. The 18-wheeler was driven by Bolus himself — and eventually, he got at least somewhat lost while trying to make it to D.C. “In a series of phone conversations with The Daily Beast over nearly three hours, the circular I-495 Beltway got the best of the duo who couldn’t find their way and got stuck in rush-hour traffic,” that publication reported last week, referring to Bolus and apparent co-organizer Betsy Green. Bolus said that members of his convoy were “not coming there just to starve them… We’re going to choke you like a boa constrictor and you’ll have nothing,” but that obviously didn’t work out how he planned. Another convoy that began its trek in California late last week disbanded over the weekend after ending up in Las Vegas with just five trucks.
Over the past few weeks, right-wing media has been hyping trucker-inspired protests & activities that would leave Biden nervous ahead of his SOTU address – but so far, all I've seen is a trucker get confused by the circular Beltway & a pathetic protest that was frankly laughable.
— Zachary Petrizzo (@ZTPetrizzo) March 1, 2022
The trucker convoy protests are modeled after protests that recently unfolded in the Canadian capital, Ottawa, over COVID-19-related government policies. There’s a trucker convoy that was, in fact, headed to D.C. this week and seemed to be having more success, at least in attendance terms — on Tuesday, a St. Louis, Missouri-area ABC affiliate described the so-called “People’s Convoy” as featuring “hundreds of truckers and their supporters.” That group, which appears to be one that started its journey at a southern California stadium last week, is apparently angling to arrive at the nation’s capital by this coming weekend. Convoy participant Jonie Smith “said they’re all protesting for the end of masking and vaccine mandates across the country,” that ABC affiliate recapped.
Imagine planning and then starting your US trucker convoy and literally as you start driving, Russia invades Ukraine and gets 24/7 attention and absolutely no one pays attention to your stupid convoy
— David Pakman (@dpakman) March 1, 2022
