America Is Not A Lost Cause With Brandon Straka & Chase Geiser
The #WalkAway Campaign is a true grassroots movement, founded by former liberal, Brandon Straka, dedicated to providing a place to share #WalkAway testimonials and personal journeys to freedom. It is inspiring, exciting, heart-wrenching, and extraordinary to watch and read the stories of the individuals who no longer accept the current ideology of the political left, what it has become, and are now bravely sharing their stories with the world.
Some of us left long ago, while many have only recently begun to question the narratives of the left. Some people have wanted to #WalkAway for some time now, but have feared the consequences they may endure from friends or family if they were to #WalkAway.
The #WalkAway Campaign encourages and supports those on the Left to walk away from the divisive tenets endorsed and mandated by the Democratic Party of today. Today’s leftist pseudo-liberalism is more committed to expanding the scope of government and pushing us into collectivism.
The Democratic Party of today has adopted a destructive belief system, separating people into groups based on identity and organizing them into camps of victims and oppressors. If you are a person of color, an LGBT person, a woman, or an American immigrant; the Democratic Party wants you to know that you are a victim and destined to stay that way. #WalkAway is the movement fighting back against Democrat exploitation of minority communities.
The Left has become so extreme and relentless that it is now the time for us to stand up and defend the inherent goodness of America and her people.
The #WalkAway Campaign is a movement of Patriots from all walks of life – men, women, black, brown, white, straight, LGBTQ, religious, and non-believers – who share something very important in common.
WE ARE ALL AMERICANS, and we will not surrender our country.
It's one American Podcast Live with Brandon Strack.
It's an honor and a pleasure to have you.
Thanks for coming on, man.
Thanks for having me.
So to be here.
I've been following you for a long time.
I was not part of the walk-away movement because I was never part of the Democratic movement.
But I always I always supported the uh the Democratic movement, or excuse me, the walk away movement, rather.
And um uh, you know, I think it's really important the work that you've been doing that you've done and that you will continue to do.
And I did uh do a little bit of a debrief to try to catch up with your story a little bit.
I watched your um uh live stream from six days ago.
I haven't watched the Mark Levin uh interview yet, but I've heard that's very good.
I'm sorry that they didn't air it on Fox for you.
Um I do what I want to start by asking you, man, and we'll get into all the January 6th, post-January 6th stuff.
But I want to start by asking you what happened on January, what was your January 5th like last day my life was happy and normal.
Uh no, I so January 5th, I was in DC.
If I recall correctly, I think I had flown in the night of January 4th.
So I'd probably gotten in late, gone to bed, and then I woke up on the fifth, and I was told that excuse me, I would be speaking at Freedom Plaza.
So um, and I'm it's hard to even remember anymore, but I think I probably knew a few days before the fifth that I was uh going to be speaking because there was from what I understood, there were like a bunch of different groups that had kind of come together to put up a stage and do an event in Freedom Plaza.
So I think that around three o'clock PM, uh I went to Freedom Plaza and I went out and I took the stage and I gave you know a five-minute kind of fiery speech talking about how uh we the the out loud and proud conservative movement were a big problem for the liberal media and that we were a problem for the Democrats,
and that we were a problem for the rhinos who didn't support us and didn't support President Trump.
And I was like on the stage shouting phrases, like I think I started the the speech by saying, Welcome to the revolution, which is something that I used to say in 20 well right, right.
Well, it's something that I used to say in 2019 when I did the so I did a college campus tour, and it was called the walk away thought revolution college campus tour.
And uh I would open each speech uh at the colleges by saying welcome to the revolution.
So it was kind of a nod to that.
And uh so I gave my speech, I got done.
Uh I don't remember.
I think I probably spent the rest of the day going back to the hotel and just kind of hanging out and chilling.
Um I've been sober for more than seven years, so I don't Congratulations.
Well, thank you.
Um I don't really like go out and drink and party and stuff like that.
So I'm my life is pretty lame.
I I probably I would imagine went to bed pretty early.
Oh, well, I'm sure I did because uh the so the sixth, we had to get up so early.
I mean, I think we had to get up at like four in the morning to be to the ellipse, and um, because there were so many people.
So yeah, I mean, I my fifth was just kind of I did that speech and I probably hung out in my hotel and everything was pretty calm.
And um, and honestly, everything was pretty calm on the sixth as well for me, uh, because I wasn't really witnessing any of the extreme craziness that you've seen on the news.
Um it was happening on the other side of the building, the west side.
It was happening on the other side of the building, and um I just didn't, I mean, even verbally, like from being told, I didn't really hear even from anybody that that had happened.
I don't think anybody where I was had any clue that that was going on.
And um, and it wasn't until many hours later that I went back to my hotel and turned on my TV and started seeing on TV that what was going on.
And so I mean, it's kind of like in that way, it's almost just like doubly tragic, the everything that I've gone through in the last year and what I'm still going through, because I honestly am I'm probably one of the last people in the country who knew what had happened on that day.
You know, I mean, because most people who were at home saw on TV much earlier than I did.
Um, and so to know that this has just been So destructive, and I've I've I that it's caught it's cost me so much.
Uh it it's just it's it's uh it's almost you know, if it wasn't so tragic, it would be kind of funny because it's like wow, I I mean I probably knew less about what was going on than most people in the country.
Sure.
Well, and the reason that I wanted to ask you about the fifth is because in the context of all the bullshit media coverage of January 6th, I think people forget what the sentiment was, what the zeitgeist was, and what the purpose of the stop the steel rally was.
It was supposed to be a group of Trump supporters and conservatives coming together and making a show of support for looking into the election, right?
Regardless of what you think.
It wasn't regardless of what you think about election integrity, it was it was literally just a protest of tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, maybe even over a million, some estimates, I don't know, people just wanted to show up and protest a lot of them with their families, most of them went home fairly quickly.
And um, I just think people have forgotten that it was uh just a standard sort of like Trump rally thing before you know a few a few um you know several dozen or however many hundreds of people lost their cool, right?
Yeah, well, I mean, it was definitely a perfectly legal, peaceful First Amendment protected event.
There was nothing wrong with it whatsoever.
And it wasn't called stop the steal, uh, for the record.
I know that's okay.
I know I know that the media loves to report that because you know, the the media loves to create these like dog whistles to their audience on the left, and they're doing it now using words just common words like patriots or revolution or um whatever,
but stop the steal has become a phrase that the left has like made so toxic that it's almost like a dog whistle now that like if you say stop the steal, they equate it with you know white supremacy and like a uh insurrectionist, yeah, insurrection, yeah.
But it's it's like a white supremacist insurrection and and all of this stuff.
And which of course, that's never what stop the steal ever meant or ever was, but also um that is not what the event was called, uh, either event.
Neither was the event on the sixth.
So the event on the sixth was actually called the March to Save America.
And the reason why they don't want you to know that is because they want you to believe that Trump told everyone to storm the Capitol, like as if there was never, I mean, my God, if you just look at the stage uh that he's speaking on, there are signs all over the stage that say save America March.
And so the event was called March to Save America, but they had signs all over the stage that said save America March.
And but now suddenly, you know, it's like, oh, you know, there was this event at the ellipse, and he told everyone to storm, and then everyone stormed, and then it's like no, it was a march.
I mean, it literally was always supposed to be March.
And um, so that bothers me.
And then uh the event, I don't know what the event on the fifth was called, but I know it wasn't called Stop the Steal, because it was uh like a coalition of different groups who came together, and I I don't know, it was like American Freedom Rally or something like that, but yeah, and so I I know that um people can hear your entire story about January 6th and Lamillion interviews, and I know that people can follow your stream, which I recommend that they do to hear uh your story about being arrested.
I think it was on January 25th, um, and and what that experience was like.
What I'd like to try to do is um have this conversation geared toward some feedback or input that maybe they haven't heard from you or in other interviews, uh, just just so that I can provide value to my audience and and learn because I follow you, and I'm gonna consume your content.
I'm gonna continue to follow you and consume your content.
So I want this conversation to be special, Brandon.
So what I want to ask you, and and forgive me if I'm covering stuff that I just don't know that you've already covered, but you know what when you went dark and I saw I think you went private on Twitter, um, right after this this all happened.
I would my original visceral emotional response was holy shit.
Like it just felt like oh they they're like they're coming after us now, you know.
And I'm not an insurrectionist, I'm not a criminal.
I I don't I generally speaking don't believe in revolutions.
You know, I believe in the 1776 revolution was the right thing to do, but I'm not advocating revolution now, not yet.
And And when they start coming for normies, then it gets really scary, right?
When they start shutting down bank accounts for truckers, then it gets a little scary, right?
So what what was your what was your year like what what did you learn from your experience last year that you didn't already know?
Oh well, a lot.
And I mean I I maybe in time I'll be able to kind of come forward with a more same hopeful and positive message about what I learned.
But it's like right now, I feel like the majority of what I learned is kind of dark and scary and frightening and alarming.
I mean, like I because when you asked me that question, the first thing that comes to my mind is that I learned that the left and the government are capable of taking a pretty well known and well-loved political figure and making him disappear.
And that when he disappears, the conservative media will not say anything about it, and uh other conservative influencers will not say anything about it.
And you know, I have to imagine there are other people.
I I mean, it doesn't make me feel very good, but I mean, I would hope that there are people that the right cares enough about that they would say something.
I mean, I because I ask myself that question sometimes.
I'm like, what if what happened to me happened to you know, any number of people who you know, either maybe they're Fox News personalities or you know, maybe they're relatives of the president, uh, President Trump, or you know, or maybe just have a much bigger following than I do, or whatever.
I mean, could this have happened to anybody, or was it just sort of like the perfect storm for me that it was like I do know what I'm saying?
Like, yeah, they're you were big enough for them to make an example out of you, but small enough that that you wouldn't have a tremendous amount of support from the establishment, right?
I yeah, I guess so.
Yeah, I I kind of think that like what if it was like Tommy Larin?
Like if they arrested Tommy Lair and issue, like would anyone say anything?
Or I because I feel like they would, but I don't know.
I mean, because I really would have thought people would have said something uh about me.
And it's not to be clear, yeah, it's hurtful.
I I'm not gonna lie, like it hurts badly, but the point isn't really so much how I feel about it or you know, if I'm like butthurt, or if it it, you know, how it feels.
The point is that it can happen.
That's the point, you know, and it's like it if it can happen to me, there's a lot of other people it can happen to, and certainly somebody who's not in the public eye so much.
I mean, I really on the one hand, I want to completely move on from January 6th.
I like I never want to look back on that day again.
I I I hate it, I hate that there's ever any connection between me and that day in any way, shape, or form, and I never want to think about it again.
But on the other hand, part of me feels this almost obligation to start reaching out to unknown people who got arrested, who have nonviolent charges, people who have nonviolent misdemeanors for either like trespassing or a parading in the Capitol, which by the way, just means that they went into the Capitol.
Um they may have walked in through an open door.
Uh, you know, I don't know that whether I know some people like crawled and crawled in through a broken window and things like that, and obviously that's not great.
And if you did that, you clearly knew you were doing something wrong when you did that.
But I think a lot of people just walked in through a door and um and then ended up getting charged and like labeled an insurrectionist, and their lives have been ruined, you know, because it's all over the news that they're a mega writer or an insurrectionist, they people have lost their jobs,
people will are now like unemployable in their communities, and I I almost feel this obligation in a way to reach out to those people because I'm like, I know what this has done to me, and I can only imagine what it's done to other people who don't have the support system I have from you know, like a fan base and a following base from coast to coast, and uh and I know how expensive it is.
I mean, it is it's been devastating financially, and a lot of these people probably were living hand to mouth.
So it's it's horrible.
You didn't actually enter the Capitol though, did you?
You just got in trouble for being on the wrong on the steps.
Yes.
I I never went inside.
Uh I was on the east side capital steps for eight minutes.
Okay.
Yeah.
That and they've got you in an ankle bracelet, and they and they had the FBI arrest you with the SWAT team for that.
SWAT team came to my apartment, um, presented me with a search warrant, uh, said that they were, you know, gonna search and seize my property and started taking my computer phone hard drives, uh they give that back.
No, I haven't gotten it back yet.
I was told I will get it back.
Um, the prosecutor told my attorney that I will get those things back, but I have no idea when, and I'll have to keep trying.
Um, but as of now, no.
Um, yeah, and they came and they took me to jail, and I spent days in jail, and then that's what just sort of started this nightmare.
Interesting that they arrested you just five days after the uh presidential administration switched hands.
Isn't it yeah?
Isn't it man?
Yeah, and it sure um it sure made things uh extra terrifying.
That's so that's for sure.
So um I don't want to name names and throw anybody under the bus, but if you could name people who were particularly supportive that you're grateful for, who are some people that come to mind that really stood up for you?
Uh in a public-facing way, uh Dinesh D'Souza, uh David Harris Jr., Mike Huckabee, Sebastian Gorka, Katie Hopkins, uh uh, and then people on on kind of like the walkaway family, like Shamika Michelle, uh Mikey Harlow, Carlin Borosinko.
Um there were, I mean, it was it wasn't a lot.
I mean, oh, Greg Kelly, uh, Greg Kelly, he was very supportive.
Julie Kelly, um uh, how could I forget them?
Those are two of the uh two of the top supporters, but I'd say like that group of people is probably the most supportive people that on on a public level.
And Mike Huckabee actually uh really touched my heart because he sent an email out to his subscribers.
Um and didn't tell me he was doing it.
I actually found out because people read it and then sent it to me.
But it was just an email that he sent out saying that he had been reading in the news about me being arrested and what I was being accused of and what the basically the the government narrative was about me, and he just said this is not the Brandon Strock that I know, and I don't believe this.
I I don't think this story is true.
And I mean, it really it was it was really wonderful because it was one of the only times that anybody in a public way like not only said that they support me, but also said that they didn't believe what was being said about me.
So have all your charges been settled.
Yes.
Um, thank you.
I was originally charged with two felonies and a misdemeanor, and the felonies were dropped, and the misdemeanor I pled guilty to.
I mean, that was kind of the deal.
Plead guilty to the misdemeanor felonies get dropped.
So um that's what I did.
And uh so now I'm I'm I'm what is the word?
House arrest.
Well, no, no.
What do you do?
You serving, I'm serving my sentence right now.
So I'm in the in the process of serving.
I have three months of house arrest and uh and then three years of probation and uh community service and fines and restitution and things like that.
Can you count uh walk away hours to toward community service since it's a 501c3?
What a great idea.
I'll ask my probation officer.
That's what I would do.
That'd be badass.
I work like 18 hours a day, so we'll just bang that out in like three days.
Yeah, come in.
That tip is free.
So what's what's next for you?
Fuck the past.
What are we gonna do now?
Well, okay, so now um we're gonna begin the process of uh moving forward and looking to the future.
And what that means is that so my team and I spent the entire year working on the things that we would roll out this year to relaunch the organization.
So the number one thing that needed to be dealt with was the fact that Facebook canceled our uh well, banned the walk away campaign group on Facebook.
Yeah, and that was the community.
We had 510,000 people in that community.
We had all of those video and written testimonials, the walk away stories, and then we also, of course, had like the community and the state groups and all of those things.
500,000 people and it's astroturfing, by the way.
It's enraging.
I mean, they said so.
What the left loves to say is either that it's Russian propaganda, Russian bots, that it was paid actors and fake testimony.
I mean, like, where do these people think I'm getting my funding from that I'm able to pay hundreds of thousands of people to make up stories?
Well, but then some people say it's all bots, some people said it was um uh shutter stock photos and all that.
I mean, it's just it's so sad because the these people uh like leftist reporters, they know that their base are like mentally handicapped people, and so when they put out stories like you know, it's all Russian bots, whatever.
They it doesn't matter that the story's not true.
They know that for years to come, like when I go into to this day, when I say anything about walk away on Twitter, there are people in the comments sharing stories that are three or four years old saying that walk away was created by Vladimir Putin.
And I'm like, I it it's not that deep.
Like I literally, I've just a guy who made a video, I told my story, it resonated with other people, so they told their stories.
That's like the this Vladimir Putin, I'm pretty sure has better things to do than to cook up uh uh American political walkaway movement.
Like it's so stupid, but these people are so stupid.
So when you made that when you made that video, and I don't mean to interrupt, but I have this is a question I've wanted to ask you for a long time.
When you made that first walkaway video, did you have any clue that it was gonna blow up like it did?
Because basically it was just sort of this like anomalous, like uh um uh viral video, right?
Yeah, well, and I no, I didn't know for sure what would happen.
Uh it did exactly what I hoped it would do.
Um, you know, I but I you know, before I did walk away, I had a lot of experience previous to that as an actor and singer.
I'm really saying a beautiful voice.
Oh, thank you.
Uh, I don't know what you heard, but thank you.
You posted a video, you did a music video like live in 2020.
When Siles Opera take it down, yeah.
It wasn't that nice of her.
Isn't that LGBT positive?
Whatever she's got speriasis, forget about it.
Did you say psoriasis?
Yeah, she does those commercials for that psoriasis uh drug.
That's called karma, Cindy.
Yeah, she's got a rash, forget about it.
Don't talk to her about it.
Yeah, that's what you get.
So my Cindy Lauper Voodoo doll is working.
Uh yeah, so um I I as a singer and an actor and performer, there were uh a number of times throughout my life where I like I I would create these little like cabaret shows and stuff, and I thought that they were kind of funny, you know.
I mean, uh I have a pretty good sense of humor, I think.
So I would I would write these shows and I would use like pop music and our really popular songs maybe from musical theater, and I would kind of stitch together like a narrative and you know, kind of do some stand-up and do jokes and stuff.
And every time I would create something, I was like, this is so good.
I was like, oh my god, I'm gonna get so many people to come and everyone's gonna love it, and whatever.
And then of course, like 12 people would show up, and like nothing would happen, and no one would ever know that I did it.
And so, but I would always every time I would do something, I would dream really big, like, oh, this is gonna be the thing that's just oh, everyone's gonna see it and they're gonna love it.
So I felt the same way when I made the walk away video.
I I felt really proud of it.
I was like, I think this is amazing.
I I think it's really tight.
I think it like it it the cadence and the rhythm is good, and I think the music is good, and I think the message is good.
And I was like, this really should resonate with people, but you just you never know.
But yeah, I definitely had these fantasies that it would go really viral and that people would be really touched by the message and that they would want to do what I was asking them to do, which was to make their own stories and join this community, and it worked, it worked, and uh, so I didn't like um I was I I there was no guarantee, you know.
I wasn't like, oh, this is what's gonna happen, but it did do what I know it would.
And that's that's the thing.
Like when when when you read when I read criticism of you, there's like the there's like the grifting claim, there's that there's the astro-turfing claim.
And it's really obvious to anybody who is capable of even like one or two steps of critical thinking that it doesn't make sense that it's astroturfing or grifting because you made a video before you had any followers, right?
And you had no incentive to make that shit up.
If anything, it was a risk to alienate yourself and back from your friends and community, right?
And so it's like I don't know if he's a grifter now or not.
I certainly don't think so, basically, basically now, uh, based on this conversation alone is enough for me to know that.
But I don't know if he's a grifter now or not, but he definitely wasn't when he started, right?
And so it's just cool thing that you did, man.
Way to go.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
You know, it well, and the other thing too is when uh when people accuse me of being a grifter, um, I I always try to tell them uh there are better ways to get rich than by doing free events for low-income black people in the black community.
Like we we raise money, my team and I, on it, we constantly have to raise money because we never have enough.
And then when we get the money, we go and we spend it doing events in Harlem and downtown Los Angeles and Chicago and Atlanta, Georgia, and uh AOC's district, uh, District 14 in New York City and stuff.
We do these events for the black and Hispanic and LGBT community, and we do these events because we're trying to get people to show up and listen to what we have to say, think differently, open their minds.
So we do these events for free because we know that like who's gonna pay money to go to an event to listen to people say things that are the opposite of what you believe politically.
It's not a good formula for getting rich, you know.
So I'm just like I always think I'm like, what is the grift?
Like doing free events in Harlem is like the worst grift anybody could ever come up with.
Yeah, I've been accused of grifting before, and I don't even sell anything or ask for money.
I just say you fucking grifter.
I think it's because my camera looks nice.
They're like, oh, you must be making money.
Well, I mean, I do sell merchandise and t-shirts and stuff.
And I think so.
You have to.
Yeah, I guess maybe that's the griff they're talking about.
But even that, I I don't like, I don't feel the least bit guilty about about that because first of all, of all the t-shirts we've ever sold with walkaway, uh, I've designed nearly all of them.
I'd say at least 85, 90 percent.
They're they're my uh phrases and designs and stuff like that.
And so it's like if I create something and people want it, and they choose to buy I like I'm not forcing anyone to buy anything.
I don't get how that's a grift either.
Like, if you want to buy the merch, buy it.
If you don't like me, don't buy it.
Yeah, exactly.
So we were talking about before I so rudely interrupted you.
Thank you for humoring me.
We were talking about what what's next for the walkaway movement.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So Facebook banned the group.
So we knew that the first thing that we needed to do was uh get that going again and replace that group, but we have to do it in a very autonomous and safe way.
So we did our research about what it would involve to build our own social platform.
We wanted to base the kind of look and feel and functionality on Facebook and how Facebook operates, because what we really ultimately wanted to do was make this as seamless a transition as possible.
So when we tell people we're calling it walk away social, and when walk away social launches, we want people to be able to just log on and go, ah, this looks familiar.
Like, I know yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, I know where I know what to do.
We didn't want to like reinvent the wheel and have people be like, what is that button do?
And what's that word?
And where is you know?
So uh we hired a development team and we've been working with them for many months to build out this social platform which will live uh uh in its own domain under walkaway campaign.com, and we're hosting it on servers that are uh run by a conservative run company,
and our like our security is through uh conservative cybersecurity company, and it's so just like at every level, we're not taking any chances, you know what I mean?
We're like everyone that we're doing business with in association with this are conservatives, and not to mention the fact that I actually I want to support conservatives and conservative companies.
So if we're gonna spend a lot of money and you know work on this big project, I don't want to give it to big leftist tech people anymore.
So that's the biggest thing that we're working on and going to be rolling out in this coming year.
But we also um have div designed this whole sort of activism advocacy program through our pack, the walkaway campaign pack, uh, which people can go to whackpack.org to check out the walkaway campaign pack.
And uh that's gonna be really cool because we're providing these very unique tools to people to basically just be able to type in, you know, like their name and address, and they're instantly going to have access to their Congress people, uh, their state and local uh representatives and politicians.
They're gonna have access to information about people who are running for office.
Uh, we've created scorecards based off of the walkway values that the people chose.
We we did a massive poll asking people what the issues are that are most important to them.
And from those, we chose the top five issues, and we ranked them out, and then we're creating scorecards for every member of Congress and every candidate to see how they rank in upholding the walk away values, which are things like border security, election integrity, censorship, freedom of speech, freedom of speech, first amendment, second amendment thing exactly things like basic shit that we used to like all agree with granted.
Yeah, yeah, and take for granted.
That's that's for sure.
Okay.
Yeah, exactly.
And so people will be able to, you know, click on certain candidates, see what their score is, and then even kind of look up why they have the score that they have, because we're basically gonna list out you know various bills that they voted on and things like that, and if they voted yes or voted no on things that are upholding these values that are important to people.
So we're just gonna provide a lot of resources for people to get involved and also you know, teach people activism, even if they've never done it before, teach them how to register voters and how to knock on doors, and how to write to their congress people or how to create petitions and get people to sign them and just all different things that I think a lot of people don't know how to do.
And if someone just showed them, they would love to take that initiative.
And so we're gonna teach and show people those things through our pack.
Um, and so I think that that's really exciting.
But uh, and then we're gonna just get back out and do what we've been doing, which is doing our minority focused events, doing college campus tours, doing you know, all sorts of things to just engage uh demographics of people who are traditionally voting Democrat and try to get them to open their mind and rethink that.
So let me ask you this.
And this is this is sort of the place that I that I am uh mentally about this.
There's obviously no good reason to be a leftist when you think about it, right?
Other than just sort of emotional naivety, right?
Just thinking you're doing the right thing for your neighbor.
And you know, so so the alternative, of course, is the the Republican Party in our two-party system.
I know we have more parties, but we don't.
And you know, you know, from last year, your experience that when shit hits the fan, you got people that stick up for you, and you got people that don't.
And having experienced too much silence than is then is reasonable from establishment Republicans and establishment right, with the exceptions that you made that you mentioned named.
Do you think that the Republican Party is do you think there's any hope that the Republican Party will actually respond?
Oh God.
Um, I'm not trying to ask you a question that's gonna screw you over, by the way.
I'm just genuinely curious as a concerned citizen.
I don't run for many questions.
So I mean, I I think one thing that my followers really like about me is that they feel like I always tell them the truth, even if they don't love what I have to say.
But uh no, my answer to that question is um first and foremost, there has to be an enormous amount of reformation.
Um we we have to get a lot of people out who are ineffective, uh spineless, uh cowardly, uh incapable, incompetent, uh on an impotent, on and on and on.
And uh we have to get a lot more people in who have uh like that kind of fighting spirit, kind of like Donald Trump has, like Ron DeSantis has, like you know, like Kerry Lake has.
And um I think that's part of the first step.
I'm curious to see if we do take back the House.
Um, and if we take back the Senate, but even if we just take back the House, uh what kind of difference that will make?
Like, I'm very curious to see if we take back the house, will they continue the January 6th committee, but actually just change the direction of it and start start um investigating all of the people who need to be investigated who made decisions that contributed to what happened, the security breaches and the security problems that happened on that day, like will that happen?
Or are they gonna just go back to playing nice and be like, well, we just want to be good guys, we want to be nice guys.
So, yes, the Democrats are mean and you know, they're they're fascistic and and and tyrannical, but um, you know, that's not the kind of people we want to be, so let's just be nice, and then we'll go through two more years of nothing, and then they'll take control again, and then we'll start all getting, you know, senior run to prison again.
So I don't know.
I mean, I I I know that the people who are in office right now aren't doing their jobs, and and then there's a lot of blowhards too who who kind of act like they're like the tough guys who are gonna change everything, and I'm like, I okay, well then do it.
But um, I think time will tell.
But I know for sure that we a lot of these people have to we have to get rid of them and then uh get some new blood in there who who are tough.
Well, and and my concern is, and this this could be just my own ignorance.
So I'm not making an accusation here, okay.
But when I think about Ted Cruz, this is somebody who I almost always agree with what he says.
But I can't think, just as like a regular citizen, and like I said, this could not be the case, but I can't think of one fucking law he's passed that's protected my rights or done anything that I like.
What is he like?
Okay, but what have you done?
You know, like and at least with Rand Paul, who I also have the same problem.
This is also again, could be my own ignorance of just not being aware of what Congress is doing.
But Rand Paul, at least he got Fauci to perjure himself.
Like that's something, you know, right?
Right.
But like, like what are these, you know, Republicans who speak and I agree with them?
I'm like, all right, but what are you doing?
You know, like what are you doing about freedom of speech?
We have people getting banned and censored right and left, just right, actually.
And and yeah, okay, are you gonna pass any legislation?
Like, even if you proposed a constitutional amendment that expanded the power, the protections under the first amendment, even if he proposed it with no hope of it ever passing, at least you proposed it.
So, like, what are you doing, right?
Like it's draw attention to the issue.
Yeah, if nothing else.
Yeah.
So, how do we solve the censorship problem?
Well, first let's talk about the Ted Cruz problem.
Yes, sir, yes, sir.
Yeah, well, I'm from the he's another one.
Um that see, I'm kind of reaching this phase of my journey um in the world of politics where um I'm not so enamored anymore with just the opportunity to meet certain people and have a relationship with them of some kind.
Like I met Ted Cruz uh several years ago, and I was like, oh, you know, and shook hands and talked, and he gave me his card with his phone number, and I thought, oh, this is so great.
And I feel that way.
Yeah, and then I went to several different events, parties where I ran into him and we talked again, and it was all great.
But what I started to notice was that anytime I reached out to, which was not often, it's not like I wasn't emailing him every day, like, you know, like stalking him, but I did email him three or four times over the course of several years.
Um, once when walk away campaign got banned on Facebook, um uh once after when I during this last year when I was going through this utter hell with all of these charges, and um he never responded to anything.
And um, and I asked him for representation as an attorney.
No, no, no, I just I literally just said, can we talk?
I just said, you know, I'm I'm really being crushed by the might of the federal government.
I'm one person, I'm I'm just like a guy living in America who has like the federal government and all of the liberal media coming down on me.
I have little to no voices of support on my side of the aisle.
I don't know why.
And um can you help?
And uh Nothing.
Nothing.
Um and I I feel like I'm not the only person who's had that experience.
So I don't know.
I just it's it's things like that that I'm like, stop going on television and talking tough and you know, saying all the right words to make people think that you're doing something and that you really care about people when your actions are not reflective of that, in my experience.
So one of my biggest concerns is someone who's trying to build an audience and have these conversations.
Basically, the only reason I the not the only reason, but one of the main reasons I started this podcast is so that I could hang out with people I admire, like yourself.
And I'm I'm getting to that point now, which is pretty cool.
That's it's one of the most rewarding things about it is being able to develop relationships with people that um you can only follow before.
And um obviously that being said, there's a serious concern of censorship, right?
And I know you're building the alternative platform.
I know getters an alternative platform, I know true social is an alternative platform, but up until this point, all the alternatives have failed for one reason or another.
What is what is so what is the solution to this big tech censorship problem that we have?
Because it's it seems to be very overwhelming.
I don't first of all, I don't think that they've all failed.
I I think that some have failed.
Um I actually really enjoy using getter.
Uh getter a lot.
We're live on getter right now, man.
Are we?
Yes, sir.
Uh by the way, you guys keep watching this uh podcast, don't turn it off.
But when you're done, go follow me if you're not alright.
Go hit go hit the follow button.
Uh ID in the in the in the post as well.
You know, even at my best, like when you know, when I was like on Fox News regularly doing interviews, there was no legal problem, everything was going really good.
Like my YouTube game was always terrible.
And I kind of came to it is hard, and I've kind of come to the conclusion that YouTube is one of those that if you didn't get in early, it it's really hard to break through because I think like a lot of the people who have hundreds of thousands of subscribers,
you know, or like million plus subscribers, I think that they started like a decade ago, a lot of them, or like a long time ago, when ever when there was a lot of like new audience coming to YouTube, and but like now I feel like people subscribe, people probably subscribe to exactly the number of accounts they want to subscribe to.
They don't want to subscribe to a new account.
And it it it is, it's really hard now.
Like, even if you're somebody who has a big following and people like you, um, like my videos get very few, like less than 10,000 views.
And I think my subscribers are like 72,000 or something like that, which is weird because on Twitter, I mean, before I got arrested, I had uh close to 700,000 followers on Twitter and a very, very active like Twitter engagement and following.
Now I'm just getting back, you know, I've been off for over a year and I just started tweeting again uh less than a month ago.
And um, I think I've I think I've gained about 20,000 followers in the last month, which is great.
Um, but I can tell my my engagement is not where it was before I got arrested.
You know, my my tweets are getting like two, three hundred retweets, and it was like in the thousands before there there was a giant purge too on the platform when uh after you left.
Oh, was there?
Yeah, a lot of the a lot of the um uh like election fraud accounts, not even the ones that were about it, but if you tweeted about it, they would just purge you.
I think there were like 700,000 users that got wiped, so I bet you lost a lot of your most engaged followers.
Oh, yeah, and that's probably true.
But you're right, because that's why, yeah, I close to 700,000, and then uh by the time I got arrested, I think I was down to like 510.
And then over the course of the last year when I just wasn't on social media at all working through my case, I lost an additional like 15.
But basically, by the time I uh started using my Twitter account again about a month ago, I was at like 497,000 or something like that.
And it's it's slowly building back up.
But I you know, it's I'm finding that I'm not having fun with it like I did before I got arrested.
And I I don't I don't think it's it well, it probably is partially because I'm just everything I've been through, but I also just it's it's just not fun.
I I like you know, before uh January 6th, I mean it was already bad enough when so many conservatives would get banned for saying this or banned for saying that, but then COVID happened and they started doing all of their crazy like you know this is misinformation about COVID and this is misinformation about election fraud and this is misinformation like that just uh it's hard for me to understand how anyone still uses these platforms like I basically I'm on Twitter right now uh out of nothing but
necessity and soon I won't be because I I'm not gonna continue to put up with it.
I mean I just I want to if they don't ban me over the next year I guess I'll use that time to try to encourage my followers to follow me somewhere else um and if they do ban me then I I guess it is what it is but uh it's it's just it's not enjoyable and I don't I don't generally though like social media just sucks now do you remember how fun Facebook was in 2011?
yeah it was fucking awesome yeah it was i mean i was having a blast i was scoping out girls i was interested in it was funny the memes were great the videos were like you know it was charlie bit my finger not you know a veritas video of holy shit cnn's taking over the world and they're lying about it you know so it's like i want to watch charlie bit my finger not some cnn executive being uh hidden cam right because i know that's going to break my heart right it's true yeah it's true and
i think unfortunately we don't have the luxury of living in that world anymore because it's you know uh trump like trump running for office i think was an amazing thing it certainly woke me up and changed my life and i think even despite everything i've been through the last year my life is way better than it was because i know the truth now and i'm not like uh you know a member of the sheep mob who's just being manipulated and brainwashed and
like that is worth everything having that kind of awakening but the problem is that when he became successful and then he ultimately won it just broke everything like everybody broke kathy griffin was not the only person who broke like he broke everybody on the left and that's what led to i think social media going crazy twitter facebook you know those things they're not fun anymore because everyone's deranged on the left yeah and
most people don't make this connection uh but i own a social media advertising business so i'm intimately familiar with policies and everything that go on in terms of uh platform content and people don't understand that the russian collusion hoax and we know without a doubt that it was bullshit and we've known for a long time but it's more and more obvious every day durham just blasted that report about proving that hillary clinton was paying contractors to spy due to that hoax you remember when trump won along with that russian hoax was the
cambridge analytica scandal where facebook suddenly got accused of leaking data to russian assets who used that data in order to make advertisements which by the way you can download those ads congress uploaded them and they're terrible ads and there's no way they right like jesus are wrestling satan and stuff like yeah yeah yeah so my point that i'm trying to make is the government used the cambridge analytica scandal to frighten facebook into totally revamping their political ads policies their their uh
content policies because they were terrified that they would be accused of whatever is whatever law is is being broken by leaking data to enemy uh a foreign enemy right and so that whole thing wasn't just like you know we're going to try to impeach trump with this russian hoax thing it was also used it forked to all right we're going to leverage this in order to pressure the big tech companies to crack down on content that is harming us in elections and that was where it started in my opinion it was with the cambridge analytica bullshit lie scandal and
the association with russia and the and the uh alleged election fraud of 2016 not 2020 right because remember the the democrats didn't buy that that trump was a legitimate president i think even hillary said that he wasn't a legitimate president and so so this was this this censorship started happening then we started seeing it started with alex jones everybody thought it was going to end with alex jones it's gone all the way down to small accounts who just say something that the government doesn't agree the narrative doesn't agree with right
no i i i agree with you and i you know it'll be very is truth social launching next next week it was supposed to be February sometime but I don't know if it's gonna happen there's a lot of delays in tech launches well because the last the last I what is going on with my screen I don't know you got there why don't you tell me this hold on it just popped up oh did it okay um uh the last I had heard,
I thought that they had delayed it till March or the end of March, but then now everyone's saying like next week.
So I don't know.
But I did uh I did just kind of pre-sign up right now and create my account.
It looks pretty good.
Yeah, I'll give it a shot.
I'll give them all a shot.
The the thing is with this, like it's really easy to get people out of protest to sign up for your platform.
What's really hard is to get them to come back and keep using it.
So like Gab is a perfect example of this.
Everybody signed up, but when you post on Gab, even if you have tens of thousands of followers, you get like three likes on your post, you know, and that's a problem, right?
And the engagement's white why people keep coming back.
So hopefully, you know, some your alternative or these other alternatives.
I think getters doing a good job of it that can figure out how to make people feel that that that reward when they actually publish content.
Well, and it's you know, it's unfortunate that there always has to be, I think, kind of some moment, some catalyst that sort of shifts everything and turns everything, you know.
Uh when Joe Rogan announced that he was going over to getter, it was just like there was this flood, and uh, you know, even my following went up substantially over the course of a few days and stuff, and then all of a sudden Joe Rogan became disenchanted with Getter, and in my opinion, it was over wrong information.
I don't think that what he was upset about was correct.
And so now I don't think he's using it anymore, uh, which really sucks.
But I mean, I think there needs to be a moment like that where there's you know some sort of impetus that changes the tide, and then you know, and it'll happen because uh well, one of two things is gonna happen.
Either Twitter uh Truth Social is gonna launch and it's gonna be good and it's gonna be really successful and it's going to put a huge dent in Twitter's uh user base, and then Twitter's gonna realize that they can't just keep banning people willy-nilly because now we have a viable alternative that is becoming more attractive every day.
Um I don't remember what my my other thing is, but I I can't.
Yeah, yeah.
And so, or it just flops, right?
Would be the alternative.
Well, yeah, but that's not the that's not the road I was going down.
I was going to say, um, oh, I think I was gonna say, or that Twitter is going to keep uh banning people and uh show com blatant disregard for their conservative audience, and then at that eventually there's gonna be a straw that breaks the camel's back where people are finally like, okay, why do we keep coming back to this abusive relationship?
You know, it's time to either go to getter or truth social or whatever it is that's working well.
But I again I like getter a lot I love it too.
Yeah, I don't find it to be buggy or issue-based, or like I don't really have any problems.
Uh they they need to add some more features, it needs private messaging, uh, which they say is coming.
Um, and it needs a few few little things here and there, but it's pretty good.
And I think engagement is really good.
I mean engagement's huge on the live streams.
I have I think I have almost 6,000 followers on Gitter and the the chat in the live streams, it's like flying, but I've only got I've got 50,000 over 50,000 followers on Twitter, and there's like nothing, right?
So I there's something's going on that that um that is really working for getter, and I'm very very optimistic about the future of that platform.
Uh well, and see you and you just brought up another thing about Twitter that's just in just total crap.
Um, I know people are gonna think I have my little tinfoil hat, but it's it's true.
Like um, I believe that Twitter is able to uh deploy like algorithms to mess with your following.
And the reason why I and it's start for me, it started right around the time of the election, 2020 in November.
Uh because my following for like a year and a half, two years, I could count on the number, and it would go up a lot, hundreds, sometimes thousands a day, up, up always going up.
Then all of a sudden, right then, it wasn't, you know, and it wasn't a matter that you could say, like, well, maybe it was the election, and then people lost interest in politics.
It was that it it was like it was on a loop, like it would go up by 200 and down by 200, and up by 200 and down by 200, and up by 200 and down by two, and it just like kept doing it so that I was never able to gain any momentum.
And after a while, and and sometimes I would like sit there, it's not like a lunatic, but sometimes I would just like hit refresh just to watch it because it would like it would increase by you know 10, 15, 20, and then I'd hit refresh and it would decrease by 40.
And I'm like, 40 people did not unfollow me in that 10 seconds.
Like that didn't happen.
Especially if you didn't recently tweet.
So if you didn't recently tweet something uh inflammatory, there's no way 40 people just went to your profile to delete to unfollow you.
But it that it's still happening with my account.
Like uh yesterday uh earlier today, um I 500 followers just dropped off.
It just it just decreased by 500.
And I'm like, that's literally not possible.
Like it's not possible that at the exact moment, 500 people were like, nope.
And why?
I mean, like it like you said, it's not even I'm not even like super active right now.
So I mean it's it's not like I said something so egregious they just had to like unfollow my account.
But see, that kind of thing on getter, like get getter has far fewer users, but my following's always going up.
Like I always feel like I'm making progress.
Every day my following goes up.
And like that is the direction it should be headed in.
So it's I'm in that way.
I'm kind of like, whatever it is that Twitter's up to, whatever it is that they're doing, I'm like, why would you even want that look for your platform?
Because it basically makes it look like your platform isn't doing well.
And you've got a s a new platform that's much smaller than you guys are, and people who are joining, their followings are going up and up it makes it look like there's constantly new users engaging.
It makes it look like it's growing and growing.
And I'm like Twitter, I feel like they're if you're a conservative, you just get this feeling that like Twitter's dying, kind of, and then you're like certainly is for us, in terms of how how how much longer is our user base even gonna be allowed on the platform.
You know, so that being said, obviously there's a lot of things to be really concerned about in this country.
And it's easy to get to a place of hopelessness, uh, in terms of, hey, this isn't fixable, it's just gonna have to collapse and be rebuilt.
And I fall down that road sometimes, uh um, especially if there's like a series of three or four like major bad things that happen in a row in the terms of the news and what government decides to do.
Do you think that there's hope to restore this country?
And and what gives you that hope if so, and and uh why not if you don't?
Yeah, I wouldn't do what I do if I didn't think that.
I mean, I think you can't be uh the leader of a movement called walk away and not have named it runaway, by the way.
Right, yeah, a lot of people say that.
Yeah, like run away like body python.
Diamond and self always say run and run like hell.
Um yeah, uh I I think you know I believe, you know, and perhaps I'm a little bit biased, but like I believe that the key to saving this country is walk away movements like walk away,
because if we put a lot of focus on particularly minor like all people, but particularly minorities, getting them to wake up and think for themselves, stop being manipulated manipulated, stop being brainwashed, it literally fixes every problem that we have.
Number one, the left can no longer manipulate race and racism because uh non-Caucasians will no longer believe them and they'll see what they're doing.
So the media won't be able to exploit these fake hate crimes and fake stories about race and race this and raise that and homophobia, this and homophobia, that and then these people who are voting Democrat because of these manipulations will stop voting Democrat because of these manipulations.
And eventually what will happen is that the whole toxic ideology of identity politics will begin to evaporate and go away too.
Because what will happen next is that all of these minorities will start to see they're not hated by their uh political opposites on the other side of the aisle.
And in fact, a lot of them will probably consider joining their political opposites on the other side of the aisle.
And I think at the end of the day, everybody wants to be successful, everybody wants to do well, everyone wants to feel good about themselves and feel financially secure and what have you.
And the only way to do that is to step into your power and do what it is that you do and make your life work for you.
And no one's ever gonna do that if all you ever do is turn on the television and listen to how you're hated by more than half the country And that you can't succeed and you're stuck in a victim complex and in an oppressor complex, and that no matter what you do, no one's ever gonna let you get ahead.
And you know, it's once we start breaking people out of that, it everything that they're doing begins to crumble and fall.
And so, you know, I'm hoping that going forward, more and more and more and more people will support walk away in what we're doing, even if they're not a walk away themselves, even if they're a lifelong conservative or republican.
Uh, those are the people that we call hashtag walk with, uh, because you know, we want people to walk with those who walk away and also support the organization, you know, um, because we could be doing so, so much more uh if we had the resources to do that.
And so go to walk awaycampaign.com, check us out and uh you know uh support, donate, volunteer, do whatever you can.
But at the very least, go and check out our new website because it's awesome.
We just we just uh rolled out a new walkaway campaign.com.
It's really cool.
It is very cool.
And so, what I want to say in closing, because we're coming up on an hour.
First thing I want to say, uh, Brandon, is thank you for all that you've done.
I genuinely, genuinely appreciate it.
It was something that you started with only a risk to yourself.
It's something that you perpetuated, even though you didn't have to.
And you've overcome more than many most Americans have in perhaps decades or centuries, even to some extent, with what you've been through.
And I am so sorry for what you went through last year in particular.
And if you believe that there is hope for this country, even with that fucking ankle bracelet on, then I believe that there's hope for this country.
So I I thank you for inspiring me.
And we're gonna keep fighting the good fight.
Thank you for saying all that.
That that that really touched my heart and it meant a lot to me.
