0:00

Walkway is movement of people who

0:02

have woken up to the lies and deceptions

0:04

of the liberal left of the Democratic Party

0:07

and we're walking away.

0:14

This is a daily single bonus episode though.

0:16

My name is Jared Stepan. You just heard

0:18

me speak to Branded Straka of the Hashtag

0:21

Walkaway Project here at the CPAC

0:23

Conference in Washington DC. Stroke

0:25

of course has founded a social media

0:28

group for former Liberals and canceled

0:30

Americans so they can gather together and

0:32

talk about the issues that really matter. Stay

0:34

tuned for my conversation with Brandon Straka right

0:37

after this.

0:45

Looking for quick conservative policy solutions

0:48

to current issues from America's outpost

0:50

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1:00

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or at the link in the show notes.

1:12

Hello. This is Jared Straka with The Daily

1:14

Signal. I'm here with Brandon Straka who

1:17

is the founder of the hashtag

1:19

Away' campaign and here at CPAC.

1:22

They're gonna doing a relaunch of the

1:24

hashtag Away' campaign. Brandon,

1:26

can you explain what this is? I know

1:28

it's an organization devoted toward

1:30

transitioning many Liberals to conservative

1:33

views, so to speak. Can

1:35

you explain what this is and how you're helping

1:37

many former Liberals

1:39

transition? Yeah. We're we're we're yes. We're

1:41

providing affirmative care

1:44

for people who are transitioning. Yeah.

1:46

No. It's not that type of transition, actually.

1:50

Walkway is movement of people who

1:52

have woken up to the lies and deceptions

1:54

of the liberal left, of the Democratic Party.

1:57

And we're walking Away', and we're not

1:59

doing it quietly, we're doing it very loudly,

2:01

and we're encouraging other people to do the

2:03

same. And so I

2:06

I launched it in two thousand eighteen, which was

2:08

about a year after I walked

2:10

away myself. And when

2:12

I walked away in two thousand seventeen,

2:16

The one thing that really just sort of struck

2:19

me and shocked me a little bit was

2:21

there was no community of support.

2:23

It was it was really rough. I mean, I lost

2:25

most of my friends. I lost

2:28

job opportunities. I lost family.

2:30

I lost all sorts of And I thought I

2:32

can't be the only person going through this. And

2:34

like, why has nobody brought people together

2:36

to support each other? And so in two

2:38

thousand eighteen, I created Facebook group called hashtag

2:41

walk Away' I put out a video

2:43

talking about all the reasons why I was walking

2:45

Away', and then I encouraged other people to make

2:47

their own videos and upload them to the group and

2:49

tell their stories. Two and a half years

2:51

later, we'd grown to five hundred and ten thousand

2:53

people and tens of thousands of videos and

2:56

written testimonials. And then in January

2:58

of twenty twenty one, Facebook banned

3:00

the walk Away' campaign. And

3:02

so what we're doing right now is literally

3:05

yesterday we launched our

3:07

own social media platform. This is something I've

3:09

been working on for two years. It's

3:12

been really exhausting and really soul crushing,

3:14

but we launched to walk Away' social yesterday.

3:17

And so this is basically an

3:20

autonomous social platform that

3:22

we own. It functions very

3:24

similarly to Facebook and that people

3:26

can create a profile and upload videos

3:28

and written posts

3:31

and long form videos. They

3:33

can join groups And so they can come

3:35

on our platform and join the testimonial group,

3:37

their state groups, discussion groups, and different

3:40

communities, and they can once again

3:42

upload their video testimonials and they're written testimonials

3:44

telling their stories. And, I mean,

3:47

we haven't this is a very soft launch because

3:49

we're here at CPAC. I'm gonna start doing

3:51

media. I guess, I'm doing it now.

3:53

But I'm gonna like, really doing press releases

3:55

and stuff next week. But we already

3:58

had over a thousand people sign up yesterday,

4:00

and we have lots of people already making

4:02

videos. So we're off to the races. That's

4:04

wonderful. What do you find to be the thing that

4:06

has pushed the most people? Where are

4:08

the commas stories you're hearing from people who were

4:10

liberals who decided

4:12

this this ideology isn't for me. What what

4:14

do you find to be? Is there any common trends

4:16

or themes with with these people? Hands

4:18

down thousand percent

4:20

the media. It's it's all it's

4:23

not that's not the only reason, and

4:25

I'll I'll give you some other examples but overwhelmingly,

4:28

the common thread is the media. The people

4:31

realized that they've been lied to,

4:33

manipulated exploited, betrayed,

4:36

and that's a huge thing. This feeling of betrayal

4:38

wants people realize that they the

4:40

media that they trusted has been using them

4:42

and lying to them and deceiving them. Manipulating

4:45

them. And so that

4:47

is kind of like the biggest catalyst, I would say.

4:49

But then as the campaign was

4:51

unfolding over the two and a half years before

4:53

we were banned, it was interesting to

4:55

watch how different waves of current

4:58

of social events and current events were influencing

5:00

people's decisions. For instance, when

5:03

the democrats were going after Brett Kavanaugh

5:05

during the time when he was, you know, going to be

5:07

confirmed, that

5:09

brought for and sometimes you can't

5:11

even explain why, but that brought

5:13

a wave of people who had

5:15

been lifelong Democrats for a lot. I mean, we

5:17

had a woman who was ninety three years old.

5:20

And she made a testimonial, and she said,

5:22

I've been volunteering for the Democrat Party

5:24

since I was thirteen years old. And

5:27

she said, I I I'm walking away.

5:29

She was like, I I see so clearly

5:31

with this Kavanaugh thing that this is not the

5:33

party from my childhood. You

5:35

know, this party has changed and got off the rails.

5:37

Then in twenty twenty, when Black

5:40

Lives Matter decided it was a good idea

5:42

to burn the country to the ground, and

5:44

the government decided it was a good idea to shut

5:47

down everybody's businesses and destroy

5:49

everyone's lives. That brought this

5:51

enormous wave of young people particularly

5:53

BLM. We started getting a lot of videos

5:55

and written testimonials from people twenty four or

5:57

twenty five, twenty six years old, which is always

6:00

very encouraging to see. Yes. And

6:02

it's hard to know sometimes, like, why one

6:04

would attract an older demographic or

6:06

a younger demographic or maybe a black

6:09

and Hispanic

6:09

demographic, but it's just fascinating to

6:12

watch as people tell their stories. Absolutely.

6:14

I I like your idea. You said of creating

6:16

a community for people so people feel like

6:18

I have something I could go to because there

6:21

may be very personal consequences for

6:23

people choosing to walk away from the

6:25

Democrat Party or walk away and their liberal views

6:27

that could be among their friends or could

6:29

even mean something like what you spoke about recently

6:31

on Twitter, which is being effectively canceled

6:33

by your hairstyles. Can you can you talk about

6:36

that? Because it's scary stuff because Americans

6:38

are thinking there could be something like a social credit

6:40

score in the United States. If I don't have

6:42

the right views, it's scary to talk about this. It

6:44

sounds like we live under a tyrannical regime.

6:46

Right? Can you talk about that a little bit?

6:48

Yeah, absolutely. So The first

6:50

thing that your listeners should know is that on

6:53

January six twenty twenty one, I was

6:55

outside of the capital. I was actually scheduled

6:57

to be a speaker at a permitted

6:59

event on Capitol grounds. And I started

7:01

hearing on text messages, things that people

7:04

were going inside the building, which sounded

7:06

pretty unusual to me, so I started shooting

7:08

a video. And I shot a video of myself

7:11

walking up onto the Capitol grounds on the

7:13

east side, not the west side where people were breaking

7:15

windows. So I was on the other side, and

7:18

I walked up to the stairs

7:20

of the east side. And when I got there, doors were

7:22

open. There was a crowd of people amassed

7:25

outside. Some of them were trying to walk in

7:27

and the majority were standing there shooting a video

7:29

I never entered the capital on January

7:31

sixth. I didn't break any windows

7:34

or punch any police officers. In fact,

7:36

I didn't even see any police officers. Nonetheless,

7:40

I uploaded the video that I'd shot to

7:42

Twitter, and two and a half weeks later,

7:44

my apartment was stormed by the FBI.

7:47

They got me out of bed, put me in handcuffs, and

7:49

took me to jail. And I spent a year

7:52

working my way through a criminal case.

7:54

They charged me they I mean, they threatened to charge

7:56

me with felony obstruction of congress.

7:58

I mean, I was looking at, like, twenty four years

8:01

worth of charges. And so I

8:03

took the plea deal that

8:05

they offered me to plead guilty to

8:07

a misdemeanor. And so I

8:09

plead guilty to a class B misdemeanor

8:12

for disorderly conduct. I

8:14

got house arrest and some probation. I

8:17

have served every aspect of

8:19

my sentence other than the remainder of

8:21

my probation, which will be up in another

8:23

year and a half plus. So

8:26

for whatever my crime

8:28

was, I think

8:30

that I've sufficiently paid my debt to

8:32

society. Nonetheless, I

8:35

have been permanently banned by

8:37

PayPal, Venmo, Stripe, Patreon,

8:39

multiple email services. I was

8:42

banned from Facebook, Instagram. I

8:44

was banned from payment

8:46

processors, donor portals. I mean,

8:48

it it's astounding. And

8:50

these are permanent bands for which you cannot

8:52

appeal. I mean, they tell you you're

8:54

done for life. We're not gonna change

8:57

our mind. There's no conversation to be had.

8:59

You're you're canceled permanently. So

9:03

last week, I went to book an

9:05

appointment with my stylist at hair salon,

9:08

and the receptionist said, well,

9:10

that's odd. I can't I can't book your

9:12

appointment. Now, I've been through this enough times

9:14

in last couple years. I was like, you got to be

9:16

kidding me. You've got to be kidding me. And I knew

9:18

very quickly what was going on because

9:20

the previous appointment that I had had

9:23

My stylist wasn't available, so they sent me

9:25

to a different stylist, a man. And

9:27

we started getting into a conversation. What do you

9:29

do for a living? And we started talking about politics.

9:32

And he told me, you know, he's a liberal and he doesn't like

9:34

Trump and all these things. And that's fine. I don't care.

9:36

I mean, whatever he can think whatever he wants to think.

9:38

And I thought the conversation was perfectly pleasant

9:41

and reasonable. And I told him that I had been

9:43

arrested for January six that I had

9:45

gotten misdemeanor charge, and and and

9:48

we talked about all that. And I thought, again, the

9:50

conversation was very reasonable. Next

9:52

thing I know, the hair salon tells me, you're permanently

9:54

banned, you're not allowed for the

9:56

rest of your life to book an appointment at any

9:58

of our locations. And so

10:01

I think at that point, I was like, you know, very

10:03

soon, it will be two and a half

10:06

years. Since my class

10:08

B petty offense misdemeanor charge.

10:11

And at at what point

10:13

is there do we move past this?

10:16

Like, at what point am I allowed to send

10:18

and receive money or have a bank account

10:20

or get my haircut? Because

10:23

I stood outside of the capital shooting a video

10:25

eight minutes.

10:26

Like, this is insanity. I mean, this is like Salem

10:28

Witch trial, kind of insanity. That's

10:31

absolutely and also the

10:33

collusion between various companies, organizations,

10:35

excluding you from the normal

10:38

function of society. I mean, you can't

10:40

do basic How

10:42

are you supposed to operate? How are you supposed to live? And

10:44

I think especially as, you know, which I think is

10:46

great work by your organization helping other

10:48

people who may be in a similar situation to you and

10:50

there may be more of them -- Right. -- very soon,

10:52

helping people say, hey, I need a support

10:54

network because nobody else is going to.

10:56

I can't go to Thanks. I can't go to anything else.

10:58

And I think that's incredible work you're doing.

11:01

Thank thank you very much. And I'm I'm happy to

11:03

see your your your re launch your organization. sounds

11:05

like you're helping a lot people make this transition

11:07

as we said at the

11:08

beginning. So thank you very much for

11:10

joining us on the daily single podcast. You're welcome.

11:12

And if I could tell your listeners that

11:15

they can find it at Away' dot

11:17

com. They can go there, sign up,

11:19

see what's going on. It's also available on

11:21

the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.

11:24

Google is dragging their feet releasing the app, but

11:26

we believe it'll be out anywhere between today

11:28

and the the end of the week. But get

11:31

on there. And even if you didn't walk away from

11:33

the Democratic Party, we always encourage

11:35

people who are supportive to those who are walking away.

11:37

We call them hash tag with. And

11:40

we love for the walk with people to come on and

11:42

also make their testimonials and talk about your

11:44

values. Why you never were a Democrat

11:46

and why being conservative is important

11:49

to you what your values

11:50

are. So Away' social dot com.

11:52

Excellent. Thank

11:52

you so much, Brandon. Thank Michelle. And

11:56

that'll do it for today's episode. Thank

11:58

you for listening to the Daily Signal Podcast.

12:01

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