Canada's trucker protesters aren't who Americans might think.

 The reality is the truckers live in a country that is among the most highly vaccinated in the industrialized world.

Some 90% of Canadian truckers are vaccinated, and their umbrella association has disowned the protestors.

The "Freedom Convoy" has come to this sleepy capital to protest a mandate that requires truckers entering the country to be vaccinated or comply with testing and quarantine requirements.

Some, she found, distanced themselves from the more militant truckers who oppose vaccination outright, spread misinformation and traffic in hatred.

If there has been no bloodshed it is perhaps because those with other opinions have stayed away (a counter-demonstration by pro-vaccination activists was canceled) and the authorities have stood by.

In Quebec, the most aggressive jurisdiction on the pandemic, which threatened (but this week dropped) a plan to tax the unvaccinated, the provincial government is popular.

Canadians have embraced restrictive measures -- wearing masks, closing schools, shops, gyms, offices -- their governments have imposed, particularly measures targeting the unvaccinated.

What unites them is their opposition to lockdowns and mask and vaccine mandates.

As a society, Canada is less willing to accept the staggering number of deaths from the virus as the United States (which has some three times those in Canada, adjusted for differences in population).

Canada is a progressive place of little social unrest where issues that remain contentious in the US -- abortion, same-sex rights, voting rights, immigration -- are settled.

That conservatives in the United States are moved by a protest in Canada -- that they even notice Canada -- likely emboldens the Canadian truckers.

At first blush, their protest feels American.

Whatever the facile comparisons, familiar symbols and fearful words, this Canadian protest isn't a grassroots revolt or even a Prairie brushfire.

After all, to fabulists such as broadcaster Tucker Carlson, Canada has become a dark, surveillance state led by "no more fearful despot in the world than Justin Trudeau."

A reporter roaming the crowd on Parliament Hill described a "festive" mood -- not just a gnarled, baying brigade of old-stock Canadians lugging a catalogue of grievance.

More likely, it's a winter carnival, ephemeral, a flaring of anger -- and one that is very, very Canadian.

The worst of the protesters may be deplorables, but they are our deplorables, peculiarly and certifiably Canadian.

With this laissez-faire strategy, the protesters might well occupy Ottawa, as they threaten, for months.

Instead, they re-elected Justin Trudeau and the Liberals, who denounce the mob.

Among the protesters in Ottawa, there were certainly bad people, as Trump would say.

Some wave banners emblazoned with "Make Canada great again," "F--k Trudeau," or "Trump 2024."

This protest has been celebrated by some in the United States, perhaps in the hope that revolution is flowering in frozen Canada.

The reason Canadians generally obey their government is not because we are "better people," as one Canadian mocks his country's penchant for sanctimony.

Canadians, once said to defer instinctively to authority, now accept an absence of it.

And as professor Josh Greenberg incisively argues, the absence of violence does not make this peaceful.

The city will not ticket trucks clogging roads because it may anger them.

As long as they are not stopped by the police, tolerated by the public and ignored by lawmakers, they will be free to sit on the sidewalk, sleep in the cold and honk into the wind.

Ottawa (CNN)For days, the army of truckers and their disciples has been honking, marching, demanding and posturing.

American truckers are said to be inspired to plan their own mobilized march in Washington, DC.

The thousands of protesters here -- police estimates on the weekend were 5,000 to 18,000 people, far short of the boasts of 50,000 trucks that organizers had claimed -- are not just white, male and Christian.

The protestors are intimidating and unsettling by their presence alone.

They shout "freedom," while authorities fear chaos and send the prime minister and his family to "an undisclosed location," much like the Secret Service hid Vice President Dick Cheney on September 11, 2001.

The police talk about "de-escalating" and congratulate themselves that there has been no death or destruction.

Astonishingly, though, there have been no fines.

No incidents, assaults, or fisticuffs.

No ultimatums or restrictions.

No deadlines.

Forget comparisons to January 6, 2021.

They're wrong.

The national consensus prefers a loss of liberty over a loss of life.

They have little currency in a country where freedom matters less than order.

In fact, had freedom been so fundamental, Canadians would have elected the right-wing People's Party promising it last year.

She noted breathlessly that the leaders include a Jewish and an Indigenous Canadian.

According to reports, they are of mixed ethnicity, a reflection of a heterogenous Canada, which admitted more than 1% of its population in immigrants last year.

The parliamentary precinct is paralyzed and so is the political class.

But they will persuade few.

We do it because we are prudent, cautious and moderate, given to compromise and accommodation, sometimes to a fault.

Call this Canadian nice.

O Canada!

Truckers are your salvation!

But there are no guns, no nooses, no body armor.

The officials ask but do not act, frustrated residents complain but do not march, the protestors shrug and do not leave (at least not all of them).

Meanwhile, roads are blocked and many businesses downtown are closed.

It will not impose a curfew or ban.

"Please leave," politicians implore, politely.

Among the vocal are Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former President Donald Trump.

Carlson, Trump and Musk see something monumental here.

Vulgarity, yes, cacophony, yes, and a volley of taunts and threats from the many tribunes of the far right who have joined the parade.

Some danced on the War Memorial.

Some carried a swastika.

Others carried a Confederate battle flag.