The online far right indulged in another epic bout of wishful thinking over the weekend. This time their fantasies were at least less harmful than #Pizzagate, if no more true. With #WalkAway, conservatives tried to convince themselves and one another that there is “a ‘growing movement’ of Democrats—particularly minority Democrats—abandoning their party, and liberalism.”
The whole thing apparently started with a video by an aspiring actor in New York urging other people who had once considered themselves liberals to “walk away” and start a movement. The video has more than a million views on Facebook and is in no way an audition for a paid Fox News gig or some other form of wingnut welfare. (Just kidding—that is 100 percent what it is, and it will probably pay off.)
The Washington Post’s Abby Ohlheiser describes the #WalkAway phenomenon:
A hashtag claiming to capture a movement among liberals has gone viral, in this case, almost exclusively on the right-wing Internet, as a reinforcement of one of its binding ideas.
Supposed liberals are Walking Away from the Democratic Party and somehow the people noticing their social media posts about it are not the other liberals who you might expect to be friends and followers of liberals, but conservatives. Interesting, huh? The hot new viral movement leaned on stuff like this:
Clap harder, guys.