OPINION:
It is not difficult to see why Democrats are walking away from their party. The Democratic Party has been taken over by the radical left. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., once mainstream in the party, is now considered too moderate.
At a recent televised town hall, moderator Elizabeth Vargas attempted to get Mr. Kennedy to disparage former President Donald Trump after reading a statement from Mr. Trump in which he complimented Mr. Kennedy.
“I am proud Trump likes me,” Mr. Kennedy responded. “I want to bring people together.”
Aside from the rage junkies who have fed their addiction to Trump hatred for eight years and show no sign of getting clean, I think that’s what we all want.
Many people are tired of the constant fighting and knee-jerk outrage toward political opponents. We seek unity and the ability to disagree without being disagreeable.
We seek a home for our values, which is why people continue to walk away from the Democratic Party. For many, unfortunately, it comes at a personal cost.
“I’m so frustrated with where our country is right now,” a woman recently posted in a video on #WalkAway Social. “They have created so much division in this country. There’s people I can’t event talk to anymore,” she said, holding back tears while describing the rift now between herself and her mother and her sisters due to her decision to no longer support the Democrats.
Despite a media obsession with Black Lives Matter, Pride, and other political fads, social conservatism is actually on the rise. Gallup recently found that 38% of respondents identified as “very conservative” or “conservative” on social issues, a 5-point increase from 2022 (33%) and 8 points higher than 2021 (30%).
It is likely this increase is due to the negative reaction many Americans have to the left’s radical priorities and the media’s endorsement of them.
The legacy media have been largely responsible for the division and animosity that dominates public discourse today.
Beckey Mayberry, another purported #WalkAway member, recalled the fear that gripped many Americans during the coronavirus pandemic, and the media’s role in undermining Mr. Trump.
She said “friend after friend” went to social media to attack Mr. Trump and post things like, “For the love of God, don’t listen to the president, don’t ingest Lysol!”
Democrats and their partners in crime in the legacy media twisted what Mr. Trump said in the early days of the pandemic when public health officials were exploring solutions in real time. They were researching light rays and an unnamed “disinfectant” as possible solutions.
But then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats declared that he was referring to Lysol, adding to public hysteria by implying that the president of the United States was encouraging the ingestion of a toxic household chemical.
“The president is asking you to inject Lysol into your lungs,” Mrs. Pelosi declared on Twitter. She was also given a platform on CNN to proclaim that the president was encouraging “embalming.”
Yet her post was never flagged by the previous Twitter administration. Progressive privilege has its benefits, including never being held to account by the media or fact-checked by the social media overlords.
“He never said that. That’s not what he said at all, that’s not what he meant at all,” Ms. Mayberry recalled as she recounted when her eyes began to open. She said she began a deep dive into what Mr. Trump was saying.
“I saw moment after moment of things I believed Mr. Trump said or did just dissipate in front of me because I saw the truth,” she said, being so moved that if she ever met Mr. Trump in person, she would apologize.
In another promising cultural paradigm shift, Black men are walking away from the Democratic Party. Over the last four presidential elections, Democrats have continued to lose their share of Black male voters.
In 2008, 95% of Black men voted for then-candidate Barack Obama. That number dropped to 87% in 2012. It was the same in 2016 when Mr. Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton faced off, but it fell again in 2020.
That move away was exemplified by people like Christopher Wright, a Black man. He said he became disaffected when he believed Mr. Obama didn’t keep his campaign promises. Mr. Wright said he respected Ben Carson during the 2016 primaries because of his successful medical career. When Dr. Carson faltered in the campaign, Mr. Wright supported Mr. Trump.
“The moment I came out on social media and said I’m voting for Mr. Trump, that got everybody pissed off. Family, friends, oh, my gosh, everybody,” he said, including childhood friends. “A lot of arguments, a lot of debates, a lot of unfriending” on social media, simply because he decided to walk away and support a conservative candidate.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s candidacy represents a real threat to the Democratic order. President Biden — or his anointed successor — is to be protected at any cost.
Mr. Kennedy’s skepticism about vaccine safety, his frank talk about the lack of border security, and his willingness to accept compliments from Mr. Trump make him a danger to the progressive mindset that has come to dominate the party. The party’s expected sabotage of its own process to favor Mr. Biden and work against Mr. Kennedy will only cause more division and lead more disaffected Democrats to walk away.
We are more than willing to welcome these newly awakened patriots to our effort to solve the problems America is facing by working together and finding common ground so that we can all strive to achieve our own version of the American dream.
- Brandon Straka is a former liberal and founder of the #WalkAway Campaign.
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