The big rigs are hitting the road as I write these words.
A thousand trucks departed from California late in February on their way to Washington, D.C., The Daily Mail reports. Others from around the country will join that convoy. If their schedule goes as planned, they’ll arrive in the nation’s capital the week of March 1 when President Biden gives his State of the Union speech.
Canadian truck drivers inspired this protest. Over the last couple of months, they blocked certain roads and bridges between Canada and America, shutting down the capital city of Ottawa for a few weeks. Justin Trudeau’s government responded by arresting some of them, freezing their bank accounts, and confiscating their vehicles.
Though the heavy-handed COVID-19 mandates in both countries sparked this rebellion—the governments have wanted all truck drivers, who spend most of their time alone in a cab, to take the COVID jab. Yet other causes here in the U.S. are also likely at work, not the least of which is the intelligent and independent spirit that prevails among the trucking class.
American truckers are hardy souls who are mostly conservative in their politics and believe in the value of hard work. While driving, many of them undoubtedly listen to country music and podcasts by folks like Joe Rogan or Jocko Willink, entertainment hardly sympathetic to the theories and policies put out by academics, movie stars, the Big Tech gang, and some socialist-minded politicians. When Lee Greenwood sings “I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free,” you can bet your blue jeans and western boots that a whole bunch of drivers are bellowing out those words with him.
There’s an old trucker joke: “My teacher told me I’d never make a living staring out the window, but that’s what I do all day long.” That quip might bring a smile, but the truth is that driving an 18-wheeler requires stamina, planning, skill, and brains. The men and women behind the wheel are neither stupid nor lazy.
They also know firsthand how the Biden bunch has wrecked this country’s economy. Those rigs they drive don’t come cheap, and they or their employers are paying out the nose for repairs and for gas at the pump. Like everyone else, these cowpokes of the road have mouths to feed and children to educate. They get what’s happening in the country.
And consider this: just over a year ago, these same dictators with their coronavirus mandates were saluting truckers as heroes, the men and women who kept the country fed, fueled, and clothed, who were out every day on the road driving their hearts out while other people worked from home in their pajamas.
When I listen to so many of our leaders and bureaucrats—and I include both Democrats and Republicans in this bunch—opining away and getting pretty much everything dead wrong, I feel enraged by their smug ignorance pretending to be wisdom. I always wonder how many of them are actually acquainted with working class Americans, the mechanics who work on their cars, the carpenters and electricians who build an addition to their mansions, the barista who serves them their morning coffee. I strongly suspect all these workers and many more are invisible to them.
American workers of all political parties and of every race are fed up with the lousy leadership at the helm of our great nation. These workers don’t have degrees from Harvard and Yale, and they don’t vacation in The Hamptons or on Martha’s Vineyard. But they have eyes, and those eyes are opened, and they see—oh, yes, you bet they see—the incompetence and betrayal of the American way of life by those we laughably call “the elites.” They know right well who is responsible for those high prices at the grocery store, the skyrocketing cost of gasoline, and the failures of our public schools.
So you go, truckers. Honk those horns, drive those rigs into that Great Dismal Swamp aka Washington, D.C., make ’em pay attention and listen for a change, and help give the United States of America back to the people who love her.
Keep those big wheels rolling, ladies and gentlemen, and God bless you.
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Jeff Minick lives in Front Royal, Virginia, and may be found online at jeffminick.com. He is the author of two novels, Amanda Bell and Dust on Their Wings, and two works of non-fiction, Learning as I Go and Movies Make the Man.