Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity declared Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau to be an authoritarian tyrant after he took steps to bring to an end the weekslong right-wing “Freedom Convoy” occupation of Canada’s capital city of Ottawa and illegal blockades of U.S.-Canadian border crossings. Carlson and Hannity have heavily promoted those protests and are trying to prevent American government agencies from responding to similar planned actions in the United States.

The “Freedom Convoy” originally formed last month in opposition to a requirement that Canadian truckers either be vaccinated or quarantine after returning from trips across the U.S. border, but it has since metastasized into an all-purpose right-wing anti-government movement. Its aggrieved participants, using big rig trucks and other vehicles, have kept downtown Ottawa’s residential and government neighborhoods under siege since late January. They have also snarled supply chains by stopping traffic on several international crossings, sometimes for days at a time. In response, Trudeau invoked on Monday the Emergencies Act, which he said would give police “more tools” to restore order and allow financial institutions to cut off funding to the protesters.

The views of the protesters are not representative of Canadian truckers, nearly 90% of whom are vaccinated, nor the broader populace, which overwhelmingly wants them to either go home or be removed by police or the military. But Carlson and Hannity agree with the protesters’ right-wing anti-government views, so the hosts portray them as channeling the authentic voice of the Canadian working class against authoritarian elites who will court disaster if they do anything other than submitting to the organizers’ demands.

Hannity said on Monday night that “the Freedom Convoy is standing strong tonight, standing up against one-size-fits-all medicine” while Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergencies Act signals “an all-out authoritarian, dictatorial crackdown against an overwhelmingly peaceful protest.”

“Rather than meet with the heroes of the pandemic that kept Canada alive in their worst moments, rather than negotiate a settlement, rather than listening to their legitimate concerns, he is acting like an authoritarian thug, cracking down with the full force of government on the heroes of the pandemic,” he added.

Carlson likewise depicted Trudeau as having “suspended democracy and declared Canada a dictatorship” after “thousands of blue collar workers showed up in Ottawa several weeks ago to protest the tyranny being imposed against them” and refused to leave.

Led by Carlson and Hannity, Fox has championed the Canadian protests for weeks, devoting nearly 15 hours of coverage to the “freedom fighters” through Sunday. It’s very unusual for the network to spend so much time analyzing developments in a foreign country, but the protesters share a common goal with its propagandists: They all want to undermine the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, without regard for the potential resulting death tolls. And Fox’s incessant coverage is helping to ensure that the events it is broadcasting from Canada don’t just remain there.

By cheerleading for the Canadian protesters, hosting them for fawning interviews, lavishing them with praise, and openly calling for similar protests in the United States, Fox created incentives for an American knock-off version. Now there’s a U.S. “Freedom Convoy” in the works, which organizers say will depart Southern California in early March and head for Washington, D.C.

Fox famously backed right-wing protest movements like the tea party in 2009 and anti-lockdown rallies in 2020. But if the U.S. “Freedom Convoy” takes the Canadian version as its model, it will be something much more disruptive and potentially dangerous. 

Like Canada, the United States is a liberal democracy with meaningful elections. Those who disagree with government decisions can try to alter them at the ballot box or use protests and civil disobedience to call attention to ongoing injustice and provoke policy changes. 

The convoys are something different: an attempt by right-wingers without popular support to use the threat or act of force to make swaths of the country ungovernable until they get their way. Their success in either country would teach those on the right that they can act with impunity far beyond the bounds of normal democratic behavior to extract policy demands, with potentially devastating consequences. And as Trudeau tries to take action against the Canadian convoy, the defenses Carlson and Hannity are rolling out telegraph how they plan to try to limit the options U.S. officials have when the American version rolls into their cities.

The Fox hosts both downplayed the protesters’ actions and portrayed the government response as disproportionate. “According to Justin Trudeau, everyone you saw in that tape is a terrorist, even the kids in their bouncy castles,” Carlson said after airing some brief clips from Ottawa. “Justin Trudeau has unilaterally revoked their civil liberties and authorized men with automatic weapons to haul them to jail.”

“You're going to send in the military, you're going to send in police, crack a few heads, arrest people, imprison people, confiscate their livelihood, their rigs, put them in jail, fine them a hundred grand, as they're talking about?” Hannity likewise claimed.

Hannity went on to blame Trudeau for any violence that happens if law enforcement attempts to clear the occupations.

These same questions will be coming to the U.S. soon, with the American “Freedom Convoy'' planning to zigzag across the country before entering Washington, D.C. Hannity and Carlson want to ensure that no one has any options for dealing with it other than agreeing to whatever the protesters want.