It is important not to obscure the differences.
What has been happening in Canada is bad. There is no reason to downplay the damage done by weeks of occupation of Ottawa, the closure of numerous border crossings, and other disturbances. The closing of border crossings was an economic assault on both countries, to say nothing of the extra expenditures on policing and governments services in Ottawa. The protests include Christian nationalists, displays of Confederate flags and swastikas, Trump 2024 banners, and other symbols reminiscent of Jan. 6th. And an American-style militia group reportedly plotted to murder police at one blockade to accelerate a civil war in Canada.
But it is important not to obscure the differences between the Canadian Freedom Convoys and Jan. 6th.
First, the size. Perhaps 8,000 people participated in the truckers’ protests in Ottawa on January 29, and perhaps half that number on February 12, per police estimates. But the crowds in Washington on Jan. 6th were an order of magnitude bigger: An estimate from the Secret Service and the FBI apparently puts the total number of protesters in D.C. that day at 120,000. Some 25,000 of those people were screened by the Secret Service to enter the restricted zone near Donald Trump’s rally that morning.
Second, intent. The mob in Ottawa never attempted to attack Parliament itself. The siege—which, again, was bad—never became an assault on the seat of government.
Third, much of the organization, the rhetoric, and the support of the convoy is American or American-influenced, to the point of incomprehensibility in a Canadian context.
Meanwhile, back in the United States, Donald Trump is still running on a platform of the Big Lie, of pardoning seditionists, and of ever-more-erratic authoritarianism. The GOP is still pushing Big Lie candidates for electoral posts in states around the country. And the various Christian nationalist, QAnon, neo-Nazi, and militia contingents of the Jan. 6th mess are still out there. Instead of asking whether something is another country’s Jan. 6th, we should be more worried that Jan. 6th never entirely ended in the United States