#WalkAway Founder Brandon Straka: Hillary got my vote in 2016, here’s why I'm voting for Trump in 2020

In 2016 I voted for Hillary Clinton. At the time, it was safe to say this out loud. Actually, it still is.

Much safer, in fact, than admitting to voting for Donald Trump four years ago or saying that I am voting for Trump this time around.

But I am. I am casting my ballot for President Trump’s reelection. The fact that this is a difficult — even scary — thing for many people to say out loud is a significant factor in my decision.

I’ve always hated conformity. I’m a rebel at heart and always have been. I despise group-think and mobs, especially when it’s blatantly clear that the mob is wrong and simply following a trend.

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I’ve even been known to avoid seeing movies or listening to music when they’ve become absurdly over-hyped and over-saturated by the mainstream. I’ve just always liked going my own way.

My decision to vote for Hillary Clinton was not a well-researched one. It was a perceived act of self- defense. I’m a gay man in America. I believed Republicans hate gay people. Donald Trump is a Republican. Do the math.

But my fears didn’t exist only in a vacuum within myself. They were reinforced daily by the voices I trusted in the media. The “good guys” of CNN and MSNBC — like Rachel Maddow, Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon and others — did their jobs thoroughly and effectively.

I was terrified and sickened by the rise of Trump because I was told by the left-wing media that he was a wealthy, greedy, morally bankrupt bigot — as were his stunningly simple, astoundingly ignorant supporters.

When Trump won, I saw this as a backlash against eight years of a Black president and the social progress America had made — which, thanks to the clever and opportunistic marketing of the political left, I credited to the Democratic Party.

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I believed President Barack Obama had a scandal-free presidency. I believed that Democrats altruistically cared about marginalized minority communities. I believed the Democrats were inherently good.

In believing the overly simplified and false concept that Democrats are good and Republicans are bad, I embraced many policies thoughtlessly — only because they originated from “my team.”

I thought anybody should be allowed to live in America, legally or not. I thought a border wall was racist. I thought that any limitation on abortion rights was a war on women. I believed we’d evolved past a need for a right to bear arms. I believed that globalism was synonymous with humanitarianism.

The election of Trump brought my world crashing down in more ways than one. First, there were the initial weeks of fear and confusion, trying to understand how the media I trusted could have gotten it so wrong and how anybody could vote for such a wicked man.

I went on a months-long journey of research to answer these questions, and that’s when Donald Trump really began to turn my life inside out.

After many weeks of investigating Trump, the left-wing media, and the practices of the news sources I had placed my trust in, I discovered that Donald Trump was not my enemy — the leftist media were.

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When I went back to the beginning of Trump’s campaign and watched the standout moments of horror —news reports claiming Trump called Mexicans rapists, promoted violence against Black people, and mocked a reporter’s disability. What I found time and again was a blatant misrepresentation of facts and manipulative misreporting of moments taken out of context.

But why? Why would the anti-Trump media do this?

I decided to dig in further. And that’s when I began to see the horrible truth about those on the left — whether you call them liberals, progressives, leftists, or anything else.

These are all names for the same Trojan horse. They are disingenuous terms for those with a radical agenda to deconstruct American greatness. The left-wing media are in on it. Hollywood is in on it. The Democrats are in on it. The global elites are in on it.

One of the greatest weapons available for all these groups to utilize is the contortion of social justice issues.

In truth, there is a universal misinformation campaign created by the liberal media to keep Black, Brown and LGBT people and immigrants believing they’re trapped in a racist, bigoted society and structure of systemic racism from which they cannot break free or overcome — a prison designed by the Republican Party.

In order to control America, leftists have to create anarchy. To create anarchy, they need people to be angry and afraid. For people to be angry and afraid, they have to believe that they’re in danger. And to make people feel in danger, the left has to constantly lie to them.

The left needs to bring more people into this country and immediately get them hooked on the welfare system. Make them believe America will never truly accept them because of the color of their skin or where they came from. Promise them hope and opportunity — then give them a lifetime of government dependence.

Suddenly, it all came into focus for me. In seeing the truth about the Democrats, I saw the truth about Donald Trump — a man who knew for many, many years everything I had just discovered. The man who gave up living in peace and luxury with his beautiful wife and family to fight against the forces of darkness trying to destroy America. And this is why the left-wing media set forth to destroy him and attack his character.

In telling the truth about what I had discovered, I lost nearly every friend I had.

It was a devastating blow, but to me, the truth is just too damn important. It’s worth everything. And it’s worth losing everything.

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To me, this is what is on the line Tuesday. Everything. Everything that we cherish and hold dear as Americans because the left has nothing to offer the American people but lies. So you see, this election isn’t only about the issues for me.

I’m proudly voting for President Trump’s reelection because a vote for Trump is a vote for truth.