Canada and the wingnut fantasy world

Reading right-wing blogosphere posts about the anti-vax trucker insurrection in Ottawa and its recent end is like reading dispatches from some bizarre parallel universe.  A belligerent mob which blocked traffic, blasted local residents awake for days with truck horns, and shitted on the porches of people's houses was a "peaceful protest".  Trudeau's scandalously-late action to clear the streets and lift the siege of the capital was a lurch into full-blown fascism which will end with concentration camps unless resisted by armed force.  A tiny group (a small minority of Canada's truckers), trying to intimidate an elected government, was really the voice of the Canadian people, who will now launch a general strike or an armed uprising.

This is what happens when people confine their news consumption entirely to sources which agree with whatever ideology they already hold.  Most likely these bloggers genuinely don't know how the anti-vaxers in Ottawa were actually behaving or how most truckers (and Canadians generally) reacted.  They really believe that it was a peaceful protest and that most Canadians support it.

It's reminiscent of the more unhinged US wingnut rhetoric about the January 6 insurrection and its aftermath, and there are clear cross-border influences at work here.  Among the Ottawa insurrectionists were adherents of the Jericho Marches (found via Hackwhackers), a militant "Christian nationalist" movement with roots mainly in the US.  Beyond Ottawa, right-wing thugs across Canada have been menacing and attacking the press in ways not normally associated with that country, but quite typical of the behavior of intolerant ideological fanatics in the US.

Now a group of American wingnuts, taking inspiration in turn from their Canadian fellows, are planning a similar truck convoy from California to the DC area.  They claim to expect one thousand trucks to join, but historically, actual participation in right-wing events of this kind tends to fall far short of early pronouncements.  The capital city, being forewarned, is making preparations to maintain order.  The US truckers might be well-advised to skip the mass horn-blasting of residential areas.  People who are kept awake for days tend to get very angry, and Americans tend to have guns.

A similar mob of anti-vax goons have been encamped for two weeks in Wellington, capital of New Zealand, and have been violently assholing as the police close in.

It will be interesting to observe the reactions on these same blogs when no mass uprisings (or much of anything) follow from the clearing away of these gangs from the capital cities they besieged.  Most likely they'll just forget about it entirely and move on to whatever appealing violent fantasy comes along next.

[Second image found via Octoberfarm]