Steven Franzkowiak, an Atlanta-based electrical engineer, was among volunteers to the Andrew Yang campaign for the Democratic Party presidential nomination who attended part of That’s a Big 10-4 on D.C. early last month in Washington, D.C. He characterizes his experience there speaking with drivers about the Yang candidacy as among other things a “pretty hard sell” given the conservative nature of many in trucking.
Yet Yang has been sounding the alarm about trucking as among the next industries to be upended by automation, and though that subject has received attention from various quarters, Yang’s alone in invoking the issue specifically in the context of trucking as the 2020 presidential campaign season comes into full fruition.
After 10-4, though, Franzkowiak struck up a relationship with members of a some trucking Facebook groups, among them The Disrespected Trucker.
Today, November 4, a small group of truckers banded together in Lexington with support from a Yang campaign-supporting Super PAC (political action committee) — the Humanity Forward Fund. Their plan, to display support with their trucks throughout the afternoon ahead of a Donald Trump rally scheduled to take place in the Rupp Arena at the Lexington Convention Center.
Disrespected Trucker admin Jeremy Johnson, in a Facebook video posted last week, also invited Trump-supporting truckers to display their own banners alongside those with Yang banners in order to “show the country that we’re united as truckers regardless of what our political beliefs are … in order to make sure we get Trump’s attention” and to bring “media at the national level out” to “get them to pay attention to the American truck driver.”
I spoke with two participants, Ohio-based owner-operator Todd Campbell and Kentucky-based driver James Toller, this morning as they sat parked with two other trucks at the Fayette Mall with various banners displayed on their rigs.
Call it a creative way to get media attention at the national level to truckers’ issues, Toller and Campbell both suggested. “We rode around for a few miles this morning,” Toller said. “It’s amazing the response and the attention that we’re getting” by displaying Yang banners. “There was a lot of chatter about it on the radio when we ran up to Georgetown and back.”
