I am Canadian, so my experience and recollection of the events of January 6th are somewhat removed and, I assume, vary from Americans. However, back home a comparable event occurred last winter called “The Freedom Convoy.” This radical right movement protested national vaccination mandates and involved trucks occupying my hometown. The trucks gridlocked streets, forcing residents back into their homes and terrorizing them with noise pollution from incessant honking for over a month.
Like the assault on the US Capital in 2021, this “protest” manifested online and drew on memes to coordinate and spread the fringe group’s message. Currently, “The Freedom Convey” organizers are on trial. This article relays trucker Chris Barber’s testimony, where he claims that the demonstration was only ever meant to be peaceful. If Barber is to be believed (which I do not necessarily think he should be) then what he is outlining is a fracturing of ideology and power which largely occurred online via social media. As Donovan, Dreyfuss and Friedberg touch on in their book, it is essential to “talk about these insurgent groups on the right as a whole to discuss their impact, while also recognizing that within this umbrella of antiestablishmentarians there are very specific subfactions” (16). These subgroups not only form through (and within) social media but are divided and differentiated by it.
Read the whole article below:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/freedom-convoy-chris-barber-power-struggle-1.6636737
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