What #WalkAway is Saying About the USA

Photo: Brett Sayles

In the past week or so, a viral video has taken the internet by storm. Millions of people have viewed the video, the man in the video has been doing a tour of shows on TV, and it's been an extremely hot topic on every social media platform you can think of. 

But what does it mean for the USA? 

Well, as I said millions of people have seen the video. It has apparently made enough of an impact that a lot of liberals and liberal media outlets are now calling it a fake campaign by Russian bots. Once you are labelled a Russian bot in this day, you know you've made an impact. As of this writing, there are 89.316 members of the Facebook group, and that number is ever growing (by the time I hit publish on this article there will be hundreds more members). 

If you take into consideration that some of those people aren't walking away from anything and are just there to support the people who are, you can assume about 3/4 of the people, give or take, are people who are actually walking away. There are women, transgenders, homosexuals, African Americans, Hispanics, etc. all joining this thing and leaving their stories as to why they decided to walk away. 

​Still, the about 90,000 members isn't really a huge swath of people considering it is a political movement. So why is there such an impact? Why are people getting scared of this enough to start accusing the group of being run by Russian bots? 

​I think we need to walk back a little bit toward Kanye West. Don't take this the wrong way, I'm not taking away credit for this movement and giving it to Kanye. But if you think back towards that whole debacle, you'll remember the outrage over Kanye saying pro-Trump things and all his Hollywood elite friends were unfriending him and stuff... and he didn't apologize. He moved forward unapologetically. The heat cooled down eventually and he's really not in the news anymore. But he got away with "being a free thinker" without his career going down the drain. 

After that, the approval ratings for Trump among African Americans began to rise. Now, there's this growing movement being led by a gay man who is now all over TV and seemingly overnight became a very recognizable face. It is packed full of people the left thought they had a monopoly on. These are people they have been telling for years that the right despises and wants destroyed, people they tell that Trump was elected to rid us of. 

The movement is getting so much attention because it is challenging the minority monopoly. 

​A common theme I am reading in these testimonials - and I admit, I've read hundreds of them - is that these people were taught to believe that only the left cared about them and everyone else hated them, but now they are seeing that this isn't true. They are watching the left talk a lot without any action. They are watching non-citizens and criminals getting preferential treatment. Many had long time good friends who cut ties with them when they began to question the left. I am seeing a lot of those stories, many of them are heartbreaking. Decades long friendships ended immediately because of one questioning moment. They are watching the reactions to that one questioning moment and realizing in seconds a group of people who claim to be tolerant and supportive of them are suddenly not so much when they question anything... while the side who was supposed to hate them is answering their questions and not really caring who they are. 

Right now, Americans are tired of the division. Everything is racist. Everything is sexist. And it's getting tiring. I watched a news story tonight about a woman who was questioned while entering the pool of a housing development, and I listened as she and the reporters - both local and national - immediately decided it was because she was black and compared it to other incidents that have happened. Seriously, the local news reporter actually began the story by saying, "There's been a recent rise in the amount of white people calling the police on black people while they do every day things." I watched the video, and my response was "I need more information." I didn't pass off their claims of it being racially motivated, but I refused to immediately call the man racist. My complex has a pool. I don't use it much, but when I did, there were times I was asked for ID to prove I was a resident. Once I was actually escorted out because I hadn't brought my ID. So yes, I need more information.

But we don't do that anymore. The news is a race to report first, and apparently making sure you have the correct reports isn't necessary. Everything is motivated by hatred and there is no more supply of evidence or allowing the other person to have a side of the story. 

White people are constantly admonished for being racist, while also being told that we're born racist. OK, so you mean it can't be fixed? Then why are we trying? Trump has a supreme court pick coming up, and everyone is clutching their pearls because obviously abortion is going to be completely outlawed immediately and gay marriage rights are going to be taken away, leaving gay marriages non-valid. Anyone who wasn't born in the USA is obviously going to be deported immediately. Everything is a massive crisis, the world is constantly coming to an end, and only about .0000002% of things being reported are actually things that are true and/or are of major concern. 

We're watching as groups of "marginalized people" are lifting themselves up by tearing everyone else down. Women have to tear down men. Blacks have to tear down whites. Immigrants have to tear down birth citizens. Gays have to tear down straights. Transgenders have to tear down cis genders. No, we don't! You don't have to tear anyone down to lift yourself up! You gain actual equality by raising yourself and your community up, not by tearing everyone else down. And when you raise yourself up, the country is better for it. When you tear others down, we're more divided and less of a nation. 

90,000 people have realized this and are sick of it. 90,000 people aren't going to cause a revolution. They aren't going to cause a wave in elections. But they are a start. They are proof that we as Americans can come together and be just that - Americans. We need to get past labeling each other to death and just be one people. We need to learn about each other and stop taking someone else's word for it when they tell you what someone else is like. 90,000 people were a little surprised to find out that people who don't identify as left wing didn't hate them. Those 90,000 people are going to be the voices that let others know. And that scares the extreme left, because it threatens their monopoly. It creates free thinkers who don't need them to tell them how to feel about things anymore. And I hope it grows. This is the first sign of real 'hope and change" that I've seen in years. 

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