Brandon Straka, founder of the WalkAway movement from the Democratic Party, is now challenging antisemitic socialist Zohran Mamdani in New York’s mayoral race, because “if you think the future seems scary, you have no idea what a scary future looks like until you've lived under ‘democratic socialism.’”
After Mamdani won the Democratic primary, Straka decided immediately to “move back to the city that I love and fight this guy as hard as I possibly can.” New York City is one of our most historic and influential cities, and letting Mamdani lie and bribe his way to victory would be a disaster not just for the city but for our whole country. That’s why Straka wants an army of volunteers to spread the word on the horrors of so-called “democratic socialism” and restore hope in the American dream.
Straka announced passionately at an August rally, “We are starting today a movement … in New York City to stop democratic socialism dead in its tracks. I recognize that Zohran Mamdani has captured the interest and the attention of many people in Gen Z, many people in minority communities, and a lot of people think that he is the answer to their problems. Why? Because the pain points that he's talking about are very, very real.”
Zohran Mamdani… We're coming for you. The movement to defeat the socialist insurgency has begun. #WalkAway pic.twitter.com/2vKq0uWMgb
— Brandon Straka #WalkAway (@BrandonStraka) August 16, 2025
New York City really is “unaffordable,” but it’s because of too much Democratic/socialist policy, not too little. Straka explained, “Democratic socialism takes vulnerable people and lies to them and tells them that the government will solve all of their problems. It tells them, oh, but if only you give the government more power, over your housing, over your electricity, over your groceries, over your transportation, over your education, over your healthcare, over your child care, we will fix all of your problems.”
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Straka challenged his audience, “When is the last time you woke up and thought to yourself, ‘Thank goodness for the government. They really fixed that problem’. Never, it's never happened. And you know why? Because democratic socialism — forget the democratic. … It's just a Trojan horse.”
The “democratic” is just tacked on for “false marketing,” Straka emphasized. “This is soft communism… just plain socialism, which is a fancy way of dressing up communism. And communism and socialism have never succeeded. They've always failed everywhere they've ever been attempted.”
He anticipated some of the arguments of his opponents: “‘Look at Medicare, Brandon, … look at the post office, Brandon. These are all versions of socialism, and they're very, very successful.’ That is a lie.” In fact, Medicare is rife with fraud, as is every welfare program, and the United State Postal Office had a $9.5 billion net loss last fiscal year. Then there’s the nearly $38 trillion in federal debt.
But Straka took a slightly different tactic in responding: “We do have government-run programs, and we do have government-funded safety nets in this country, but they are nothing more than that. Our safety nets were always intended to be systems to help people get back on their feet when they have hard times and continue to participate in a capitalist system.”
He emphasized, “They were never meant to be dependencies that people remain on for the rest of their lives and remain on generationally and pass on to their children and their grandchildren and create an environment where people become dependent on the government for everything.”
After all, as we know all too well, “when you put the government in charge of every aspect of people's lives, it crushes their soul, it crushes their creativity, it crushes their will. It crushes their freedom. It crushes their drive to be everything that they were meant to be in this world, it makes them mindless drones who are dependent on the government.”
That is exactly what socialists like Mamdani want; they want 1984 to be a reality. But Straka said, “We cannot allow this in New York City; these systems will fail and they will crush and kill the city that we love so much. I have been interviewing so many college kids over the last couple of months, and you know what they tell me? They say, I don't believe I'm ever going to be able to own a home. I don't believe I'm ever going to be able to get out of student loan debt. I don't believe that the American Dream is attainable for me.”
Unfortunately, unless they have excellent parental or teacher guidance, they will be very vulnerable to Zohran Mamdani’s propaganda. The magic word “free,” even though all it does is cover up the fact that taxpayers will be bled dry and the economy will collapse, entices young voters. Straka noted Mamdani tells youth, “‘The government's going to give you that dream.’ And these kids are young, and they say, ‘Sounds good to me, because I feel like I did everything right, and I feel like I'm drowning in debt’.”
Straka is determined “to educate these kids and say, ‘Listen to me, if you think your problems are bad today, if you think the future seems scary, you have no idea what a scary future looks like until you've lived under democrat socialism. Ask these women who came today from Communist China, who fled Communist China so they can be a part of the American dream. Ask them about socialism.” It’s a nightmare of poverty and tyranny.
Therefore, Straka is looking for fighters “all over Manhattan in the Bronx and Staten Island and Brooklyn and Queens.” But many of the problems and propaganda points plaguing New York exist across the country. Straka is right — a grassroots movement is necessary to transform our culture and guide young people desperate for a path toward achieving the American dream.
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