When Brian Brase was informed that his friends and family members are losing their jobs due to COVID-19 vaccine mandates, the trucker decided to do something about it. He co-organized the "People’s Convoy" along with fellow trucker Michael Landis.
“Good buddies of mine are being forced to leave the military because they choose to stand against the vaccine,” said Brase who lives in Ohio. ‘They don't want to take the vaccine. These guys have careers in the military and now it’s going to be cut short because of this. I have family members who work in the healthcare industry and law enforcement all of whom are being affected by the mandates.”
The People’s Convoy initiative is aimed at ending COVID-19 vaccine mandates nationwide.
“It’s really all about raising the awareness as to what's happening and showing that we still, as the people, have a voice and the ability to have our voices heard,” Landis told the Southern California Record. “We just have to come together and stand up.”
After a successful rally in Los Angeles on April 10, the convoy’s next scheduled stop is Sacramento.
“Because of these laws they're trying to pass in California, that's why we are targeting California,” Brase told the Southern California Record. “The history would show that the direction California goes, is how the rest of the nation will go when it comes to approving some of these laws. At least for all the blue states, they seem to follow whatever California does. So, we found it extremely important to get to California and try to shut this down as quickly as we could.”
Brase and Landis are moving the convoy to Sacramento next week.
“We are traveling to Sacramento here over the weekend and we are going to be there next week and the week after, if necessary, while the Assembly votes on a bunch of these tyrannical bills that they are trying to get put in place,” Landis said.
The bills that the People's Convoy opposes include SB 871, which would add the COVID-19 vaccine to a list of required vaccinations for public and private school attendance, SB 866, which lowers the age of vaccine consent to 12 years old without parental consent, AB 1797, which would create an immunization tracking giving all government agencies access to the vaccine records of every citizen, and AB 1993, which would require proof of vaccination for all employees and independent contractors to work in California.
“Some of these bills out here are extremely horrible, very unconstitutional, and inhumane,” Landis added. “They go against a lot of morals of our founding fathers and if we have the opportunity to stop them out here before they get put in place, then we're ahead of the game because after they get put in place, it's more difficult. What we see in California ends up spreading across the country.”
The People’s Convoy reimburses participants for the fuel they pay to drive along. Some $1,833,798 has been collected so far from donations.
Unlike their Canadian trucker counterparts who have had their funds frozen online, the People’s Convoy has not had any money seized by the government.
“We did it a lot differently,” Brase added. “We stayed away from crowdsourcing. We went through a private conservative bank, set up a website, and worked closely with a 501(c)3 nonprofit to collect donations so we haven't had any issues with the government trying to take the funds away.”