The #WalkAway Campaign’s Mission Statement Calls for a Surface-Level Utopia
By: Rebeca Ansar
Tags: Politics, Current Events, Culture, America, Election 2020

What the campaign wants from you

Founded in 2018, by Brandon Straka, the #WalkAway campaign urges Americans to “leave identity politics behind”, instead opting to “walk towards unity, civility, respect.”

The problem is, Straka doesn’t just want you to leave the radical left. He’s not just asking you to walk away. He’s asking you to walk toward Trump’s America. It’s not about shedding your biases and having the freedom to be a free thinker. It can’t be, not when the politics are still the dogmatic condemnation of voices hoping to make real change in this country.

This is a common tactic used by Trump supporters with a platform. They want you to leave the “democratic plantation” and to“break the chains”. Putting the strategic rhetoric aside, the issue remains that you’re being asked to support leaders who preserve the status quo of sexist and racist policies in this country. If you can find it in yourself to do that, then you have finally “awakened to the truth.”

Even then, you still won’t be walking away from bipartisanship. The two-party system is one of the key dysfunctions in the United States, which keeps us from implementing a true democracy.

It is impossible to dismantle a system of you have no terms with which to discuss its components.

The truth about identity politics

Identity politics is “a tendency for people of a particular religion, race, social background, etc., to form exclusive political alliances, moving away from traditional broad-based party politics.”

One of the main points repeatedly reiterated by the Trump camp is that identity politics are no good and they have no place in America.

We have to ask ourselves a few questions here. While not a comprehensive list, the following few come to mind.

Who started identity politics? Why do they persist as a force that shapes our political landscape? What are the justifications to discard identity politics? What would the culture, society, and political landscape of the United States look like without them?

Before we can begin to look for answers, it’s time we understand that identity politics don’t just apply when marginalized groups inconveniently start raising their voices. Being a white supremacist is an identity. Being Christian is an identity. Being a sexist is an identity. While they don’t necessarily have to intersect, each of these is a mainstream identity in the United States.

Individuals who subscribe to these identities vote, join political organizations that reflect their identity-based beliefs, and help shape what it means to be an American for each of us.

The Proud Boys, a male-only White Supremacist group, is a textbook example of identity politics at play. Yet, the #WalkAway organization wants us to leave identity politics behind while Donald Trump, whom the organization backs, is having a hard time condemning the Proud Boys.

Obfuscation is a tool to protect the powerful

Does this mean we should just make peace with our country being this unstable and divided?

Before we can solve our problems, we must acknowledge them.

Identity politics have existed for as long as politics have. People of color did not invent them.

They have been used by the identities in power to construct systems of oppression and to make the oppressive identities the status quo. It is impossible to dismantle a system of you have no terms with which to discuss its components.

We cannot politically address sexism or racism without identity politics. It would be wonderful to live in a world that is post-patriarchy and post-race, but we haven’t yet done the work to be there.

Instead of using this term as coded language to delegitimize the voices of marginalized groups, it’s time for us to understand that the improved version of our country won’t just magically appear once we all leave the Democratic Party and walk on over to Trump’s side.

The #WalkAway campaign is a gaslighting attempt to convince people that we will have our peace if we eliminate forces for change, even though we desperately need change.

Being American doesn’t have to mean burying our heads in the sand and pretending that we don’t struggle with the challenges of ending oppression.