‘Fight for that freedom’: Hundreds in Boise support truckers, bash Biden and COVID rules
Speakers blaring country music were drowned out by the sounds of supportive cheering and honking as a few dozen long-haul semitrailers turned onto the Broadway Avenue exit off Interstate 84 just east of the Boise Airport on Wednesday to attend a rally in their honor, dubbed the American Freedom Convoy.
Along with the commercial truckers and a line of support vehicles from Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Utah decorated in America-themed regalia, roughly 500 people awaited them on curbsides and crosswalks for the event hosted by Idaho Health Freedom, with help from the Idaho Liberty Dogs, a right-wing political group. Truck drivers say they are traveling across the U.S. en route to Washington, D.C., to oppose mask and vaccine mandates and affirm personal freedoms.
The processions in the U.S. come in response to the trucker convoy in Canada last month that gridlocked Ottawa, its national capital. Supporters Wednesday in Boise flashed white bumper stickers handed out by a volunteer that read: “18 wheels 2 flatten the curve.”
Ramona Oto, an Iranian immigrant who lives in Eagle, said the event was the first politically focused rally she has ever attended. She wore a pink hat with the words “Let’s Go Brandon,” a euphemism for a four-letter insult directed at President Joe Biden, and brought her young son, whom Oto said she doesn’t want taught to be “ashamed” of America.
Oto said she left Iran and moved to California in 2000 before arriving in Idaho in 2018, where she is raising her three children.
“We picked the most conservative state close to California,” she told the Idaho Statesman, adding that she felt people’s freedoms were being taken away in her former home state. That has only accelerated during the pandemic, Oto said, including with vaccine mandates, though she said she chose to get inoculated against COVID-19.
The U.S. government is headed toward, “Give me all of your rights, trust me,” Oto said. “We’ve seen that in Iran, and how did that go?”
‘Sometimes they refer to us as being ‘extreme’ ’
Attendees Wednesday along the highway overpass waved assorted flags, including the traditional American Stars and Stripes and alternate Thin Blue Line version, plus those with phrases such as “Trump Won.” The latter makes reference to former President Donald Trump’s repeatedly disproved claims of widespread voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Biden.
Others held homemade signs with messages like, “Truck the Mandates,” “Willing to lose friends for FREEDOM” and “Wolves Don’t Lose Sleep Over the Opinions of Sheep.” A few attendees carried holstered handguns. And at least three people displayed Confederate flags, including a booth selling T-shirts, “Make American Great Again” hats supporting Trump and other apparel. The merchandise booth’s version of the flag that honors Southern secession during the Civil War depicted an assault rifle and read, “Come and Take It.”
Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin, a Republican running for governor who counts Trump’s endorsement, spoke briefly Wednesday from a small lawn adjacent the truck stop where about half the total attendees funneled after the truckers pulled in. McGeachin recently came under fire — including from her own state political party — for submitting a video to a national political conference organized by a well-known white nationalist.
“Sometimes they refer to us as being ‘extreme’ for our views,” McGeachin told the crowd, before reading a quote from former U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater defending extremism in pursuit of liberty. “We are a free nation,” McGeachin continued, “and it is so important that we stand now and continue to fight for that freedom and that liberty that makes this country so great.”
Raúl Labrador, a former congressman and Republican who is running for state attorney general, also attended the rally, which lasted nearly three hours.
Multiple rally attendees interviewed by the Statesman expressed skepticism about the safety or efficacy of vaccines, while also opposing that people be required get them to maintain employment, which is the basis for the national truck convoy. One of the event’s organizers with Health Freedom Idaho wore a shirt with the slogan “Stop Shooting Us,” in reference to inoculations. A man who said he was a local surgeon told the crowd that he had been fired from his job five months ago for refusing to be tested for COVID-19.
Barbara Clarke, 89, showed up Wednesday with her daughter, who owns a home in Emmett. Clarke said in an interview that she is unhappy with the way the city of Boise is being run, and opposes Gov. Brad Little and the direction he’s taken the state. The first-term governor would face McGeachin and others in May’s Republican primary if he formally announces he is seeking reelection. He has not done so, although he has been fundraising.
“I’m here to support freedom in America,” Clarke said, sporting a black T-shirt with the words The People’s Convoy. “I think freedom is definitely challenged between masks, the border and the drugs they’re bringing in. All these things are closing down our freedoms, because of these epidemics.”
Mariah Carlson, a nurse from Hood River, Oregon, who traveled with the convoy, told the Statesman that the truckers spent Tuesday night in Pendleton, Oregon, before driving through Boise on Wednesday. The group stopped at the rally for about hour on its way to Twin Falls and then to Ogden, Utah, for the night, before heading to Wyoming. They eventually plan to hit Washington, D.C., to demonstrate.
Earlier in the afternoon, amid the horns and screams, one woman on the sidewalk on Broadway Avenue explained the convoy to a young boy.
“Where are they going?” the child asked.
“They’re going to Washington, D.C.,” the woman replied. “They’re going to go tell Biden to mind your business.”
This story was originally published March 2, 2022 at 2:24 PM.
