Americans inspired by the bravery and patriotism of the protesting truckers in Canada are planning to have a similar demonstration later this month. While Canada has the Freedom Convoy, the U.S. has the "People's Convoy."
According to The Gateway Pundit, a People's Convoy of up to 1,000 American truckers are heading to make the pilgrimage from California to Washington D.C. While the exact date has not yet been announced, the protest against COVID mandates in the U.S. is scheduled to begin before the month ends.
People's Convoy organizers Brian Brase and Maureen Steele announced that the upcoming protest will not rely on Big Tech companies for funding, seeing that GoFundMe shut down the fundraiser for the Freedom Convoy in Canada, while GiveSendGo was hacked, with information on its donors made public.
"We have been able to really garner some of the best and brightest on our team to make sure that this convoy goes off without a hitch. We have a logistics specialist, tacticians, we're ensuring we have fuel," Steele explained.
The organizer added, "We've brought on Exemplar Financial, which has seven offices throughout the country with lawyers and accountants that are overseeing our fundraising to make sure that's buttoned up."
Steele assured that funding for the upcoming People's Convoy will not be "frozen or hijacked" by anyone who intends to shut down the protest. Instead, they plan on protecting the funds by having them stored in an escrow account.
The organizers of the People's Convoy said that pilots are also joining in the demonstration. They said that they already have 1,000 truckers ready to participate "right out the gate" but are expecting the number to grow as it makes its way from California to Washington D.C.
"I think you're going to see it grow as we move across the country," Brase explained. "Initially, we've projected potentially a little over a thousand trucks right out the gate to start."
A recent Rasmussen Poll posted on Twitter showed that 54% of respondents said they would "support a US-based trucker convoy protest."
This is not the first time the trucker protests have moved out of Canada. In fact, a similar protest happened in Jerusalem this week. According to France 24, thousands of Israelis made their way into Jerusalem this week in a "freedom convoy" inspired by the traffic-blocking protests in Ottawa, Canada.
Protesters blared their car horns and waved Israeli and Canadian flags as they drove towards the seat of the Israeli government. Demonstrators held signs condemning mask mandates and other COVID restrictions.
A 51 year old administrator by the name of Shany Shlomo said she attended the Israel protest to speak up against COVID vaccines, saying, "Nobody can tell us what to put into our body."
Israel boasts one of the highest vaccination rates in the world and in recent weeks have loosened COVID restrictions as case numbers caused by the Omicron variant continued to decline.