The People’s Convoy of trucks protesting Covid-19 mandates that have largely been lifted is to pack up and leave the Washington, DC region.
After three weeks of circling the Beltway around the nation’s capital with forays into the city to be stuck behind someone riding a bike and have abuse hurled at them by residents, the truckers are planning to return to California.
Co-organiser Mike Landis announced on Sunday night the group would begin its journey back across the country in the coming days, The Daily Beast reports.
“So what I want to know is, what do you think about heading to California?” Mr Landis asked, to the crowd’s delight.
“Sounds like a great plan,” one trucker shouted back.
Mr Landis then told the assembled convoy members that they would be taking a more southerly route back to seek out some warmer weather after many freezing nights at the tail-end of winter.
“We’re gonna take a little more southern route, so it’s a little warmer than this,” he said.
Mr Landis also said they would “come back to finish this job”, but it was not clear when or how this would happen.
The protesters have been camped in Hagerstown, Maryland, approximately an hour and a half from Washington since early March.
During that time there appears to have been some splintering within the group, and lead organiser Brian Brase reportedly left on Saturday night to see family in Ohio telling people he was not “running away”.
Over the three weeks in which they have been in the capital region, the truckers did manage to meet with senators Ted Cruz and Ron Johnson but have otherwise only succeeded in annoying commuters with their looping of the Beltway.
They seemed taken aback when DC residents flipped them off in the street and from car windows, and despite claiming they would continue with the protest indefinitely, money and morale appeared to be fast running out.
Inspired by Canada’s “Freedom Convoy” protest, the organisers seemed unwilling to turn the protest into an occupying presence as in Ottawa earlier in the year.
When the group entered the District of Columbia for the first time, drivers were reminded that they “won’t be stopping, it won’t be blocking anything, they’ll just be driving through”.
The drivers had planned to hold a two-week protest on the National Mall beginning in mid-March, but their application was partially denied because other events were booked during the times they requested, according to the National Parks Service.
Similar to the Canadian protest, the truckers were demanding an end to coronavirus restrictions, but with few left in place other than masking on public transport and air travel, the protest devolved into a more general rightwing protest.
Signs and flags seen at the protest camp implied the presence of 2020 election conspiracy theorists and QAnon followers.
