outside the beltway

Trucker convoy won't enter D.C. out of fear government will 'do to us what they did to' Jan. 6 rioters

The organizer of the "People's Convoy" protest against COVID-19 restrictions and mandates urged demonstrators on Monday not to drive into Washington, D.C., The Daily Wire reports.

The convoy, which includes approximately 1,000 vehicles and is using Hagerstown, Maryland, as a home base, slowed traffic on the Capital Beltway on Sunday and plans to continue circling the road at the minimum legal speed every day. It will not, however, enter D.C. proper, organizers claim.

"I am fearful — [myself] and the organizers are fearful — of them trying to do to us what they did to those involved in Jan. 6," organizer Brian Brase said. "It is our belief that they will try to do that."

Another protester claimed the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was "a set-up" to justify a crackdown on conservatives and that it "would be a set-up now," if the convoy drove into D.C. proper.

This view has become widespread on the right. Fox News host Tucker Carlson produced the documentary Patriot Purge, which alleged that the government has seized on the events of Jan. 6 as a pretext for a "domestic War on Terror" targeting "half the country." Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has suggested that undercover FBI agents may have played a role in inciting the mob to storm the Capitol.  

The Week's Damon Linker described Patriot Purge as "conspiracy-laden," while The Dallas Morning News said Cruz was "peddling" a "baseless conspiracy theory."

Despite Base's warnings, some protesters insist they won't be satisfied until they've reached Capitol Hill. "[T]hat flag on the back of my truck will go down to Constitution Avenue between the White House and the Washington Monument," one man told Reuters.