The People's Convoy, like Trump's new social media platform, is another right-wing grift gone bust

"Fox News willed the "People's Convoy" into being. For weeks, the
network hyped the "trucker" protest in the Canadian capital of Ottawa,
spinning it as a grassroots uprising of ordinary Canadians angry about
vaccine mandates and other Covid-19 mitigation policies. In reality,
however, it was organized by far-right activists — almost none of whom
are actually truckers — whose goal was to exploit pandemic anxieties to recruit more people towards a fascist cause. And that is, of course, why
Fox News loved it. And that's why the network spent weeks not only
glamorizing the occupation that made life hell in the city for weeks but
openly begging their viewers to throw together their own version in the
U.S. —except with more violence."

The American organizers seem to realize that there's a problem
with this idea. At least one of the organizers in Canada is still trying
to get bailed out of jail. It looks like there are at least 100 people
facing criminal charges along with Tamara Lich. There's also a yuge
lawsuit to deal with.

"It's a testament to the network's power over its audience that soon
there was a "People's Convoy" in the U.S., even though there aren't many vaccine or mask mandates for right-wingers to protest. A growing group
of angry right-wingers, led by some big rig trucks, took road trips
across the country, in theory to converge on D.C. to send this
anti-mandate message. Without actual mandates to protest, however, it
swiftly became clear that the real purpose of the convoy was to troll
liberals and get attention. Quite literally, organizers declared their intention to be a "huge pain" to the residents of D.C., who have long
been demonized in barely coded racist terms in the right-wing press.

Ultimately, however, the "People's Convoy" didn't have the courage of
their flimsy convictions.

Despite massive amounts of self-aggrandizing hype and a fairly large,
nearly all-white rally in Hagerstown, Maryland on Friday, the trolling
truckers chickened out at the last minute when it came to actually
entering Washington D.C. Instead, they're staying inside their trucks
and circling around the Beltway before hiding out again in Hagerstown.
The whole thing couldn't be a funnier symbol of the modern right, which
likes to talk a big game about how tough they are, but in the end, are
such scaredy cats that even being out of their cars in a bona fide city frightens them."

"This debacle isn't even the only example from over the weekend of how
much right-wing politics is built on fakery and empty promises, all of
which exploit the prime directive of the modern American conservative:
irritate liberals."

"On Saturday, Ruby Cramer of Politico published a devastating look at
TRUTH Social, Donald Trump's new Twitter knock-off. The app's supposed
appeal is that Trump's team won't be as hostile to spreading Covid disinformation and inciting right-wing violence. This, in turn, means
Trump can tweet on it — or "truth" on it, to use their parlance, showing
that the actual investment into this app is so meager that they didn't
even bother to find a verb of their own. But, as I argued last summer,
that's exactly why these right-wing social media silos are doomed to irrelevance — precisely because they don't have liberals on them."

"When the main motive is triggering the liberals, you need some liberals
around to trigger. If Trump supporters want to experience a bunch of
racists saying racist stuff to each other, happy hour with their friends
is more fun and also has booze. And sure enough, Cramer reports that
"inside the app, digital tumbleweeds blew through my feed."

Part of it is due to incompetence, deliberate or otherwise. The app is
slow and buggy and people who try to sign up find that there's a massive backlog in account verifications. (Google Trends show the top searches regarding the app are "when will truth social work" and "truth social
waitlist number not changing.") But even if someone manages to get on,
all they find is the usual Republican trolls in Congress — like Reps.
Matt Gaetz of Florida and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia — simply copy-pasting their messages from Twitter. Otherwise, Cramer reports,
"there isn't much happening on the site."

So I ask: If a troll is trolling no one, can it really be considered
trolling?"
[snip]

https://www.rawstory.com/the-people-s-convoy-like-trump-s-new-social-media-platform-is-another-right-wing-grift-gone-bust/

I tried to find a website for Truth Social. All you find is an
iPhone app and the people who have iPhones are still having problems
getting on it. It's like they're not even trying. It reminds me of that
Mel Brooks movie, The Producers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u36iNj52rac

TB

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