CPAC 2024: Brandon Straka of #WalkAway Affirms What Did Not Kill Him Only Made Him More Dangerous

On the CPAC 2024 main stage, #WalkAway founder Brandon Straka looked tanned, rested, and loaded for bear—and he was. After being arrested, indicted, and taking a plea for being a supposed J6 insurrectionist (he was in D.C. for a separate event and did not enter the Capitol), his powerful movement, which had over half a million followers just on Facebook alone, had been wiped from existence. That was the Left and the Democrat Party's goal. But they have failed spectacularly.

"And Hell hath no fury like a gay man scorned by the Democrat Party!" Straka declared to rousing applause.

Straka began with his story of being a Hillary Clinton supporter and voter, who, like many on the Left after the 2016 election, melted down when Donald J. Trump won the presidency. Straka was a hairdresser in New York at that time, and he canceled all his clients and took a day off work to mourn and take to Facebook Live to cry and ask for a hug.

Yeah, it was that bad.

"It's hard to believe that one year later, is this." Straka pointed to the video montage of how #WalkAway got started. It was revolutionary for 2018 when social media hashtags were just beginning to become a powerful tool for activism and change. It represented a seismic shift in political and social engagement, and in many ways, we are still feeling the aftershocks.

When the #WalkAway campaign first started, it focused on testimonials of people who had walked away from the Democrat Party. Straka documented how it grew from a viral hashtag to a movement that brings Americans together to not only #WalkAway from lockstep party ideology (left or right) but from intolerance and societal discord. The campaign is dedicated to helping people walk toward unity, civility, respect, and first principles: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I started WalkAway after making the startling realization that almost everything I'd believed in my entire life was actually nothing more than a carefully constructed narrative installed in the public consciousness with meticulous deceit by the entertainment industry, the media, and various systems of propaganda in our culture. When I realized that not only was I being lied to, but the media and the Democrats had concocted a formula to control every minority community in this country through a steady diet of fearmongering and deception, I became outraged and I decided to do something about it.

#WalkAway took off through video testimonials, and the hashtag began to gain momentum. "My goal was to make sure every person in this country knows the hashtag #WalkAway whatever it takes," Straka said.

When Straka made an appearance on the Fox News program Tucker Carlson Tonight, it put the movement over the top, and #WalkAway went viral.

And then the long knives came out. Leftist media and the Democrat Party began to blanket the field with commentary and stories. The movement was Russian bots or an astroturf campaign with paid models and influencers. Straka soon discovered that this wasn't just a leftist or media attack narrative, but it was an engineered campaign by none other than our CIA and DHS.

This is our shocked face.

All I knew at the time was that I was one person up against the entirety of the mainstream media who were organizing to invalidate me and this fledgling movement. I knew I had to fight back with a tactical response. Then it dawned on me: If they're going to try and delegitimize us by creating a false narrative that #WalkAway is not real people—Let's do a March on Washington.

In October 2018, Straka organized the #WalkAway March on Washington, showing that the movement was a real force in the nation. Straka smartly began to grow the movement further by partnering with other allies in politics, conservative media, and entertainment. Republican activist Scott Pressler, influencer Joy Villa, gun rights activist and Black Guns Matter founder Maj Toure, actor Scott Baio, journalist Tracy Beanz, and Lara Trump. Straka collected more video testimonials, created mini-documentaries, and mounted more town halls across the country. His #UnsilentMajority was a significant voice during the COVID lockdowns through his "Rescue America Rallies."

The message was simple: If the Left is allowed to go outside to burn, loot and destroy while the rest of us are ordered to stay inside, we will not comply. We will not give up our country willingly to the radical Left.

And they didn't. Straka mounted 19 Rescue America rallies in 19 major metropolises across the U.S. The Left upped the ante on Straka and #WalkAway, and their town halls were targeted by Antifa, venues canceled them, and vendors and #WalkAway supporters were harassed. The legacy and leftist media ignored these attacks, only reporting on the unrest, not that Antifa and others precipitated it. Straka realized, "They're not just enabling it; they are it. The media is a part of the Marxist revolution to destroy America."

On January 6, Straka had the misfortune of being scheduled for a speaking event unrelated to the Trump rally. He never entered the Capitol, but he was tarred as an insurrectionist, arrested by the FBI, and indicted under felony charges. At the time, Straka took a plea deal. But the targeting and arrest served their purpose—destroying #WalkAway: Straka was demonetized, and all of #WalkAway's social media footprint was wiped away. Straka was also sued by Leftist activists funded by George Soros and was put on the no-fly list. Straka is doing what he needs to do to continue the fight and remains resolute.

So, I'm expected to wear a Scarlet "I" for insurrectionist around my neck. But I will not. I will not be shamed. I will not be shamed by anybody and I will not be ashamed. I will not be broken by the Left nor the cowards and RINOS on the right.

Straka is rebuilding #WalkAway the way he did it the first time—from the ground up. He encouraged the CPAC audience to visit the Walk Away Campaign website to join the movement, which will be bigger and more influential than its previous iteration.