The #WalkAways Show that Not All Democrats Are Willing to Drink the Kool-Aid

Diary Promotion
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Promoted from the diaries by streiff. Promotion does not imply endorsement.
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Actress Alyssa Milano speaks at a protest outside the White House, Tuesday, July 17, 2018, in Washington. This is the second day in a row the group has held a protest following President Donald Trump’s meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

As reported in the Daily Signal, link below, there is some evidence that the insatiable leftward rush of the Democratic Party leadership is not being received as well as expected by the rank and file in the party. As Jeff Walyus from the Potomac Tea Party’s Walk Away project explains that the movement is the Democratic Party’s own Tea Party moment.

It all began just a few short weeks ago when gay New York hairdresser Brandon Straka posted a hard-hitting video explaining why he is no longer a Democrat or a liberal. Since then, his #WalkAway Campaign Facebook group has attracted more than 172,000 members. A multitude of videos from other WalkAways have been posted online.

History repeats itself. Like the original Tea Party movement the establishment refused to understand the issues motivating this movement.

Make no mistake, the left has been greatly rattled by all this. The left’s treatment of the #WalkAway Campaign mirrors the way it reacted to the Tea Party movement. First, it ignored it, hoping it would go away. Then it moved on to minimizing and attempting ridicule, which it has done with #WalkAway. Steven Colbert and others claimed that the #WalkAway Campaign is just run by Russian bots.

Having seen that fail, the next step was to try to co-opt it with its own movement.

Some of the anecdotal evidence supporting this may be more than just a passing fad may sound familiar to those of us at RedState.

To the left, winning is all that matters.

Consider these words from one WalkAway, Rebecca Meli, who posted on Facebook:

The left only cares about pitting us against each other to keep control and keeping people dependent on them. … This movement has gone right to my core. To have the privilege of watching people think for themselves and recognize the deceitful practices of the left and the manipulation of minorities has been like an awakening.

Well, as Rebecca Meli demonstrates, it may take a bit longer for others to realize it but I guess we aren’t in our own little partisan bubble.

Another WalkAway, Amanda Velásquez, wrote:

I am tired of the narrative, tired of people who don’t let you speak even if you have proof of what you are talking about, they attack you and label you as racist, closed-minded, and so on.

Remember, these are the WalkAways talking not conservatives complaining about those on the left.

The article closes with this:

This is an extraordinary opportunity for conservatives, and it is not likely to come our way again in our lifetimes. Many of these WalkAways come from surprising demographics—gay people, ethnic minorities, and others.

The left worked these communities hard in amassing its power, and it is incumbent on the right to reach out to these same individuals. With the left inching ever closer to total victory, the right cannot afford to shun those who are like-minded just because they previously found themselves on opposite sides of a debate. This is a golden opportunity.

I think a lesson here, if there’s one to be learned, is that pure partisan behavior has the ability to blind those that embrace it to opportunities that present themselves in the course of the healthy exercise we call politics.

I’m not sure how many WalkAways there are but with almost 200,000 in a Facebook group with virtually zero outreach from conservatives and with the progressives in the Democratic Party (I repeat myself) it seems that there is hope for the Republic.

One thing I’m fairly confident in is that it is not enough just to welcome the WalkAways into the fold, it’s necessary that we ensure that we don’t create a mirror-image of what the WalkAways walked away from so that they see the middle or conservatives as a viable alternative.

Ideological purity, especially when the definition of what that purity is has been hijacked by the elite as they pursue power over the proles, is a dangerous game to play… on the left or on the right.