It seems mind-boggling that a small protest of truckers opposed to cross-border vaccine mandates could have created this kind of political groundswell. Organizers of the convoy protests sold their campaign as a response to Ottawa’s vaccine mandate for truckers and its Covid restrictions in general. They arrived with a “memorandum of understanding” demanding that government representatives change their Covid rules or resign. But as the demonstrations grew, the calls became louder and the message became more obtuse and anti-government. Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino warned that an organized group within the so-called Freedom Convoy was “driven by an ideology to overthrow the government.”

The truckers may have parked their rigs back home, but Canada and the U.S. are grappling with what they left behind.

Trudeau’s name is on a long list of authorities — from Ottawa’s police chief, to its mayor, to the provincial premier — accused of taking too long to respond to protests that overwhelmed the core of Canada’s capital and shut down vital border crossings. But Trudeau is also in the hot seat with Conservatives, who blame him for escalating the standoff with emergency powers that enabled, for example, the freezing of bank accounts. Their criticisms were amplified and twisted to extreme levels in the U.S., with high-profile figures likening the prime minister to some of the most notorious dictators and war criminals of the 20th century. And now, despite the revocation of the Emergencies Act — which gave Trudeau and the federal government sweeping powers to end the protests — a polarizing political fight is only just beginning.