Premium Episode 162: Attending the American Trucker Convoy Kickoff (Sample)
Travis and Jake headed to Adelanto, California where big rigs and an assortment of vehicles were gathered to set out on an American trucker convoy to Washington DC. Redpilled, anti-vaxx truckers, of course.
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Episode music by Roman85 (https://doomchakratapes.bandcamp.com/album/roman85-the-house-you-live-in-the-house-you-look-at) and Matthew Delatorre. Editing by Corey Klotz.
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Welcome, listener, to Premium Chapter 162 of the QAnon Anonymous Podcast, the American Trucker Convoy episode.
As always, we are your hosts, Jake Rakitansky, Julian Field, and Travis View.
No sooner had Jake returned than we had an assignment for him.
Join Travis in Adelanto, California, where the largest American trucker convoy was departing for Washington, D.C.
on the 23rd of February.
It was, of course, inspired by the Canadian trucker convoy that recently occupied the capital of Ottawa for weeks.
This American one, which was launching in California, was estimated by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department to have 100 big rigs and about 500 to 600 cars.
Their grievances?
A mix of anti-lockdown, anti-vax, and anti-mask sentiment, with a generous dose of red-pilled patriotism.
Despite the convoy organizers claiming that they weren't heading to the Capitol building itself, the government still seemed worried about their destination.
Here's from the Los Angeles Times.
Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said Wednesday that the Defense Department has approved 700 National Guard troops and 50 vehicles to support the D.C.
Metropolitan Police at traffic posts if trucks start arriving in Washington.
The truckers will be making stops, of course, including in Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri.
They've actually already passed Arizona, as just yesterday, on February 25th, our friend Troy Casey, aka The Certified Health Nut, headed out to an overpass where he met up with maybe about 50, 60 people cheering the passing vehicles.
Surprising even me, because this is a weird coincidence, a guy with a Ron Watkins hat, you know, that green hat that he printed for his campaign, briefly spoke to Troy on camera explaining that he was there capturing footage for a channel called Q the more you know on Tora 3 which of course is the Watkins streaming platform and that's the channel run by their flunky D Stevens on which they appear a bunch so you know he also mentioned hey I'm here to support my friend who's running for Congress that's why I won't be traveling with the truckers you know
So, uh, we just have people meeting out in the wild now at these PILD events, which is great.
Um, Troy also harassed a New York Times reporter on that overpass, following her around and haranguing her, pointing her out to the other audience members, and of course, just being a general dickhead.
To find out more about the California vibes on the ground, and what might come of the American obsession with having their own truck or convoy, I'm now going to throw to our intrepid duo of field podcasters who attended the kickoff.
Boys?
In what I'm certain is an American rite of passage, my first official act after getting married was attending a trucker convoy send-off in the city of Atalanto, southwest of Barstow, California.
I left at approximately 9 a.m.
Tuesday morning, with about a two and a half hour drive ahead of me.
Travis would be meeting me at a burger joint called Bravo Burgers.
That he said was close to the stadium where the staging was to take place.
I was bundled up tight.
The weather forecast had predicted a high of 50 degrees Fahrenheit for the day.
And, as a soft California boy, I wasn't taking any chances.
I'd packed the most truckery things I owned, a Carhartt jacket, which I love, a red hooded sweatshirt, and a pack of Marlboro Light cigarettes.
I was a little nervous, but not as bad as previous outings.
I had been inspired by our past interview with John Ronson, who has embedded himself with many groups whose politics are opposite from his own.
Perhaps over these next two days, I could adopt his sense of wonderment and leave my own anxieties warm in bed back in Los Angeles.
Easier said than done, as about an hour into the drive, I found myself having to go to the bathroom very suddenly.
After stopping at three different places that did not have public restrooms, I finally was directed to a Target brand store, for which I was grateful.
Okay, so the first reporting here is that Jake tried to find a bathroom.
Listen, listen, we bring you the most up-to-date information on Jake's pissing and shitting.
It's mostly the latter in this case.
Easier said than done, because my scrotum started itching one hour into the trip.
I was having tummy troubles, and like, you know, due to COVID, it's really hard to find people that'll let you use their bathroom, so... Listen, other journalists don't tell you about when they shit.
This is the kind of information you can only get on the QAnon podcast.
I'm not a journalist!
I do think that stool softness should be included, Jake.
Jake, you're not being very comprehensive here.
Back in the car, I listened to some podcasts I had been meaning to catch up on.
It was a little after noon when I drove past the dusty sign welcoming me to Atalanto,
the city of possibilities it read.
As I glanced out my window at miles of desert, track housing and fast food chains,
I felt bad for whoever had made the sign.
Bravo Burger was hopping, the parking lot was mostly full, and dozens of cars had given up on the lot entirely and parked their vehicles across large swaths of cold sand.
My car, which is not an SUV or pickup truck, seemed to stick out like a sore thumb.
My lack of patriotic flair was also apparent.
For some reason, I imagined Travis waiting alone at a table in the burger joint, my CIA handler impatiently waiting with today's op.
I entered the burger place.
It was mostly filled with what struck me as the real men and women of America.
Ball caps with sports teams and flags on them, worn-in work jackets and mud-caked boots.
Some women were sporting bedazzled red, white, and blue denim.
I had not worn my mask into the restaurant so as to not give myself away, but my sheer soyness was detectable from across the room.
I think this is just the script of Dumb and Dumber?
Are you about to get your ass kicked in a bathroom stall?
could kick my ass, guaranteed.
To make matters worse, no Travis Few in sight.
I think this is just the script of Dumb and Dumber.
Are you about to get your ass kicked in a bathroom stall?
No, no, fortunately that did not happen.
My safety remains intact.
Kick his ass, sea bass!
I texted Travis and he emerged from his vehicle.
With his rugged good looks and threatening facial hair, I felt being seen with him would up my cred.
I hoped, at least.
We entered the restaurant together and ordered a couple of burgers.
They were good.
The fountain machine only carried Pepsi products.
The day was off to a bad start.
My god.
After lunch, we walked across a small street where the stadium was located.
About a dozen big rigs with signs and flags were lined up in the stadium parking lot.
One of them had a bright pink cab that I thought was interesting.
Others had messages written on them in sharpie, wishing the drivers a safe journey.
A handful of merch stands were set up.
From what I could tell, they were mostly selling flags, t-shirts, pins, hats, the usual fare.
New to the merchant flag scene were Canadian flags and shirts.
Some were amalgamations that contained both the stars and stripes and the Canadian maple leaf on the same flag.
Telling you Canada's cool again.
The majority of the content printed had strong anti-vaccine messaging, as well as about 40 different designs with some variation of Let's Go Brandon.
I have to say, most of the signage and sentiment on the scene was rooted in Let's Go Brandon.
I saw one QAnon t-shirt, but it was interesting to see the once-powerful, mysterious queue clearance operator traded for essentially... Teehee, we're not going to say the bad word.
They still say the bad word.
Troy interviewed this older lady who just had a Fuck Joe Biden hat who explained she had printed both Fuck Joe Biden and Let's Go Brandon, but was wearing the quote-unquote more hardcore one.
There were maybe 75 people at the staging event on Tuesday.
Some appeared to be family and friends of the truckers.
Others appeared to be organizers unloading bags of snacks and supplies.
And then, of course, the rest had cameras documenting the event for various outlets, myself included.
I watched as a man in a Michael Myers mask and Ryan Gosling drive-style jacket step out of his car and produce a large sign that read, Where is Trudeau?
What the fuck?
You're in fucking California!
I love, yeah, I love how, what a bizarre cultural nightmare is this.
I think this was supposed to reference, like, the Where is Biden meme from when, I guess, Biden didn't, like, show up to, like, campaign events much during the campaign.
But he's wearing a mask from a horror series and he's referencing the Canadian Prime Minister.
It's just everything's mixed until it's totally incoherent.
Truck Fudo!
Yeah, I did not see any Truck Fudo signs, which would have been perfect.
Missed opportunity there.
About the Michael Myers guy, you know, I kind of assumed incorrectly that it was a young guy who was sort of trolling, you know.
But later, I saw the guy take off his mask, and it was like a much older gentleman.
I pointed this out to Travis, and he just kind of shrugged and was like, well, it is a pretty old movie.
And I was like, well, yeah, I guess.
Yeah, wear the scream mask and we can talk about, you know, Gen X. So the Michael Myers guy took a couple photographs with attendees and then walked menacingly over to a small crowd of people who had gathered around an open truck container.
They were all like kind of like craning to look inside.
So I was like, oh, something must be going on in here.
But I looked inside and all I could see was some pallets of water.
So nothing too exciting.
Then I realized a woman was sitting on the edge of the freight container videotaping a man in a headset at the front of the small crowd, either a trucker himself or one of the coordinators.
He was on a live stream.
The man answered a couple of questions and then asked for someone to lead the group in a prayer.
Even at this early point, My fingers were freezing, and so were Travis's ears.
He had brought a ball cap that indeed looked the part, but was being blown off of his head every time a gust of wind swept through the parking lot.
We decided to take a break in search of some warmer gear at a nearby gas station.
The first gas station didn't sell hats, but they did sell those knock-off Oakley-type shades that seemed much more appropriate than the J.Crew sunglasses I was wearing.
I purchased them on the company card.
Travis bought a Monster energy drink.
The next place we stopped was one of the weirdest smoke shops I have ever been to in my life.
The store was in complete disarray, with debris scattered over the unfinished floors.
Sure, they had bongs and hookahs and cigarettes, vape devices, but there was also hardware, plumbing supplies, and a collection of melee weapons?
Like, they had samurai sword and this giant broadsword in a glass case?
My god.
A true gamer shop.
It was wild.
And so it turned out that this place also sold beanies, but they all had on them a national flag that was unrecognizable to Travis and me.
We decided that anything less than the American or Canadian flag might draw suspicion, so we moved on.
The final gas station had a decent selection of beanies, and Travis and I each purchased one.
Travis also bought a five-hour energy.
Jesus, Travis.
How much energy had this man consumed?
Would he soon be ripping the cabs off of the trucks and bellowing that the attendees had been lied to about the dangers of the vaccine?
Only time would tell.
I'm Travis Vu, and this is Consuming Too Many Offers.
When we returned, the lot was no more populated than when we had left it.
Handfuls of people meandering around, taking pictures of the trucks.
I now noticed a group of about five guys wearing Proud Boys Bakersfield shirts, acting as security alongside the event staff.
A camera crew with Reuters printed on their microphone covers was interviewing Brian Bass, who is one of the co-organizers of the People's Convoy.
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