THE U.S. VERSION OF THE CANADA TRUCK BLOCKADE MIGHT BE UNPOPULAR -- AND IT MIGHT NOT MATTER

At the Mahablog, Barbara O'Brien links to a poll showing that the anti-vaxx truckers' blockade in Ottawa is extremely unpopular with the city's residents.

A significant majority of residents in Ottawa are opposed to the "Freedom Convoy" protest against public health measures, according to the results of a new poll, and nearly nine out of ten say it's time to go home.

The poll, conducted and paid for by Ottawa-based polling firm Abacus Data and obtained by CTV News, found two-thirds of respondents are opposed to the convoy and 22 per cent support it....

Almost nine-in-10 residents said it's time for protesters to leave. The poll found 87 per cent of respondents said yes to the question, "Do you think protesters have had an opportunity to make their point and should leave town?"

Even 46 per cent of respondents who said they support the convoy agreed that it's time for protesters to leave.

Nationwide numbers aren't much better for the blockaders.

Almost two-thirds of Canadians oppose the Ottawa protest against COVID-19 measures, with more than four in 10 saying they strongly consider the demonstration a selfish display, a new poll suggests.

According to the Leger survey, respondents agree with some very negative characterizations of the blockaders.

The survey found that 65 per cent thought the trucker convoy in Ottawa was a “small minority of Canadians who are thinking only about themselves and not the thousands of Canadians who are suffering through delayed surgeries and postponed treatments because of the growing pandemic.”

Fifty-seven per cent thought the convoy was not about vaccine mandates but “an opportunity for right-wing supremacist groups to rally and voice their frustrations about society.”

There's some sympathy ("44 per cent of those polled said they sympathized with the frustrations being voiced by the protesters"), but the general impression of them is very negative.

In her Mahablog post, O'Brien quotes from a post she wrote in 2015, in which she lays out a rule for demonstrators.

The Bigger Asshole Rule

Effective demonstrations are those that make them look like bigger assholes than us.

... The really great mass protest movements — the prototypes are Gandhi in India and Martin Luther King in the civil rights movement — worked because the public at large sympathized with the protesters. The protesters behaved in a way that demonstrated they were worthy of respect, and the Powers Than Be they were protesting — whether redneck southern sheriffs or the British Empire — behaved like assholes. Eventually it was public sympathy — not the protests themselves — that forced the Powers That Be to step down.

In short, if your demonstrations don’t win public sympathy, you are shooting yourself in the foot and hurting your cause more than helping it.

It looks as if the blockaders, with their incessant noise-making -- at least until a lawsuit led a court to order a halt to it -- have come off as the assholes in this case.

I worry, though, that the rules won't apply in America once we inevitably gets our own truck blockade. Remember the nationwide wars over critical race theory and masks in the months before the Virginia gubernatorial election. These were the right-wingers:

The parking lot after a school board meeting last night in Franklin, the wealthiest place in Tennessee. Parents harassed medical professionals who had spoken in favor of masks in schools. “We know who you are. You can leave freely, but we will find you.” pic.twitter.com/SzR0uvMeE7

— Natalie Allison (@natalie_allison) August 11, 2021

But after Glenn Youngkin won the governorship in Virginia, it became conventional wisdom that those in favor of masking were the elitist bad guys.

In America, if you're right-wing, you can be the bigger asshole and it's okay, because everyone -- from Fox News to The New York Times -- hates liberals.

When America's truck blockaders are in D.C., and (probably) in a few state capitals, will complaints about noise from highly educated legislative aides engender sympathy? Will local residents of color win sympathy if they complain? The people making the noise will be grizzled blue-collar white guys in plaid flannel, the same people news outlets regularly seek out in Ohio and Pennsylvania diners, so I have my doubts.

Polls might show that our truck blockaders are as unpopular as the Canadian ones. But the media will probably decide that their grievances are legitimate and that they're the victims of elite contempt. They really might be seen as the sympathetic figures -- even if they are acting like assholes.