the US dives deeper into despotism

My country, my country, my crazy, fucked-up country.

Following in Justin Trudeau's footsteps, the US Pentagon has OK'ed the use of the National Guard in response to the planned truckers' convoy that will go from California to DC. According to the linked article, the Guardsmen will not be armed, but it's obvious that their presence is for the purpose of heightening the risk of physical conflicts between truckers and authorities—all of whom are looking for any excuse to introduce stricter measures. Trudeau and his evil example have given the "free" world's leaders a template to follow for their own citizens, and I suspect it won't be long before some country's truckers end up in a bloody altercation with police and/or soldiers.

Is the UK the only sane place right now, lifting COVID restrictions? Or am I missing the news about truckers in the UK also doing their thing?

As I said previously, the answer is snipers.

Barring snipers, I think the US truckers need to find a creative response to this preemptive response (which is starting to feel a lot like our government's version of PreCrime, to be honest). Maybe drive slowly through DC, honking the whole way, then go park in some massive parking lot in Maryland and just... sit there doing nothing. All people—politicians and citizens alike—really need to feel the squeeze of what it's like to live in a country with no truckers if we're all to understand how important truckers are. And yeah, you heard me right: citizens, too, even if they're innocent. Why? Because such pressure might get some otherwise-timid citizens off their fat, lazy asses and out doing the activist work they should've been doing back before Biden was "elected." The mess our country is in is as much the citizens' fault as it is that of the politicians, and I won't listen to any righties who try to play the victim, talking about how the left is too powerful and too pervasive, after years of rightie rhetoric about the need to stop being a victim. This is precisely the sort of whining I expect to hear from the GOPe/Never Trump crowd, the GOPers who can't see past Trump's superficial qualities and realize that it's past time to put up or shut up—to actually practice the principles they've been preaching all this time. I am, frankly, as angry at these cowards as I am at the left.

ADDENDUM: here's some pressure:

• For every draconian, government-led measure brought against the protestors, a branch of CNN burns down.
• For every slanderous public accusation that the truckers are Nazis or other types of bigots, a branch of MSNBC burns down.
• For every accusation of misinformation, a major news anchor is stripped naked, tarred, and feathered.
• For every bank account that is frozen, a Congressman (or -woman) is stripped naked, tarred, and feathered, then dropped somewhere remote so they have to walk miles back to civilization as they're followed by a chase vehicle full of videographers.

The left thinks the right are monsters? That's a fantasy (most gun violence comes from Democrat-voters in the cities, not from murderous farmers in the hinterlands), but there's nothing the right can do, at this point, to alter that impression, so I say give the left what it wants. Let them feel what it's like for their most barbarous wish to come true.