While the 'Manchurian' Obama Fades and Democrats #WalkAway, President Trump Becomes the Protector of America

THE REAL QUESTION TODAY IS WHO WAS BARACK OBAMA REALLY. And what did he do to America. • • • THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. For a long time, writers have been dubbing Barack Obama "the Manchurian Candidate." But, last week the Washington Times put the words on the "front page." L. Todd Wood wrote on Sunday, July 1 : "After returning from a tour of some of the war zones in the Middle East — which ended with the Free Iran Gathering 2018 in Paris -- I am struck by the realization that America really did have a Manchurian Candidate in The White House for eight years. If you look at the evidence, there really is no other conclusion. The calamitous consequences of the Obama presidency will be felt for the foreseeable future. In the short year and a half that President Trump has been in office, he has put in place policy that has mitigated the damage that President Obama inflicted on our national security and on our allies. The speed with which Trump has been able to turn things around points to the diabolical depths the Obama administration went to in order to undermine our national strength and way of life. All Trump had to do was stop doing things that hurt America; America could then take care of itself. The results are plain as day. However, it will take decades for the Obama damage to be completely undone. The deviousness of the Obama sedition runs deep." • Wood outlines the Obama damage. The Iraq Troop Pullout : "If you wanted peace in the Middle East, why would you throw away the trillions of dollars spent, as well as the lives of thousands of American souls, by irresponsibly pulling out ALL American troops from Iraq? No matter your thoughts on starting the war, pulling out was an irresponsible thing to do. We still have troops in Germany, Korea and Japan, for God’s sake. Why?....It was a given that instability would follow the force withdrawal. When you combine this act with the reality that Obama never really did try to defeat the Islamic State, what conclusion can you come up with? Trump defeated them in a few months. The conclusion is obvious: Obama really didn’t want to destroy them." Wood names the Obama-Hillary take down Moammar Gadhafi, who had already given up his nuclear weapons : "Was it to destabilize Libya, where ISIS could gain another foothold? Why did Obama help install the Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt? What was the agenda behind the so-called Arab Spring?" But, for Wood, the "coup-de-grace of anti-American activity was the JCPOA, or, to say it another way, the agreement to give Iran everything it wanted, including nuclear weapons and money -- lots of money -- which it immediately used to further destabilize the region, and existentially threaten the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel. To take it a step further, why didn’t Obama support the opposition against the Mullahs in 2009 when there was an obvious chance for regime change in Iran? Why didn’t Obama confront Bashar Assad’s chemical weapons use? One of the main unanswered questions is what ties did Valerie Jarrett really have to the Iranian regime?" And, there was more : "Obama ran up more debt for the United States than all previous presidents combined. I won’t ask why he weakened our armed forces. I won’t ask why he used tyrannical policies, like using the agencies of the federal government to go after his political opposition. I won’t ask why he politicized our security apparatus in an attempt to frame President Trump." For Wood, "There was a big fox in the hen house for eight long years. Eight long years for people like Brennan, Hillary, Kerry, Clapper, Comey and Jarrett to really hurt us regarding our safety and security. Trump has a lot of house cleaning to do. Thank goodness he’s being quick about it." • • • OBAMA IS NOW GOING AFTER THE TRADITIONAL DEMOCRAT PARTY. Sunday, July 1 -- that same day Todd Wood was writing about Obma, the Manchurian Candidate -- Fox News' Dom Calicchio noted in another article that Obama is still backing Nancy Pelosi while other Democrats are moving on. Calicchio repeated quote Obama made at a Democrat fundraiser in California : “I think everybody knows how much I love Nancy Pelosi.” Obama said this at the same time that the frustration of Democrat leaders and base with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has been growing. And just to be sure everybody understood, at a private fundraiser party at an Atherton home, according to Politico, Obama said it again : “I think everybody knows how much I love Nancy Pelosi. Nancy, I believe, is one of the greatest speakers we ever had, and will once again be one of the greatest speakers we ever have after we get through this cycle. And there's not much I could have gotten done without having Nancy there alongside of me every step of the way.” [It's hard to argue with that last bit -- who else could have sold ObamaCare to the House by saying you have to pass it to find out what's in it.] • But, said Politico, less than two weeks ago, "at least 20 challengers running in Democratic primaries have been openly dismissive of Pelosi’s leadership. In addition, a group of incumbent Democrats -- including US Representative Brian Higgins of New York and Conor Lamb of Pennsylvania -- say they won’t back Pelosi for another term as party leader." Higgins told the Buffalo News : "Our leadership is out of touch with what is going on, not only in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan but in Cheektowaga, West Seneca, Hamburg, Orchard Park and Lancaster." Higgins was referring to swing states that voted for Donald Trump in 2016, as well as municipalities near Buffalo. • And, Wood noted that perhaps "the biggest blow to Pelosi’s future prospects occurred last Tuesday in New York City, when 28-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated longtime US Representative Joseph Crowley, 56, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus." • Why would Obama stand with Pelosi when she is being laughed at openly for calling the tax cut bonuses and pay raises "crumbs," sarcastically praising the 18-year-low unemployment rate of 3.8% by saying " "Hip Hip Hooray, unemployment is down," and calling Ocasio-Cortez’s upset victory a “one district” fluke. Well, Pelosi, along with California Democrat Representative Anna Eshoo, was co-host of the event where Obama spoke. But, Obama's comments seem like overkill, given the fall form grace Pelosi is experiencing. • The Great American Daily had noted the day before Obama's speeches, that after the shooting at a local newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, Pelosi leapt at the chance to call for confiscating guns from law abiding Americans. The Great Americna Daily wrote : "This horrific tragedy was an act of pure madness, but that did not stop partisans from attempting to exploit the death of five innocents to score political points. Nancy Pelosi was one of the first to post on social media that this terrible tragedy was an example of why Congress needed to confiscate firearms....far-left Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois also echoed Pelosi’s call for gun confiscation....At the time when Pelosi and Durbin tweeted, there was no known information about the shooter, his motives, the weapon he used, or how he obtained it. Liberal journalists also speculated that the killer was inspired by President Trump labeling fake news the 'enemy of the people.' But that accusation was just as wrongheaded as Pelosi’s call for more gun control. The killer was motivated by personal hatred and not politics....Every liberal narrative about the shooting collapsed once all the facts were known. Millions of Americans were disgusted that Pelosi used her tweet expressing thoughts and prayers as a Trojan horse to call for more gun control....Her actions were everything people hate about politicians....Pelosi and Durbin demonized Republicans for supporting the Second Amendment without even knowing any of the facts of the tragedy." [Was Obama supporting Pelosi in order to get out his gun control message? That seems like another stretch.] • • • WHAT WAS OBAMA'S REAL MESSAGE? Speaking at the Democratic National Committee fundraiser in the lush backyard of two Beverly Hills megadonors, Obama warned of a country and world on the brink -- “you are right to be concerned,” he told the crowd -- but said they’d ruin their chance to change that if they kept pining for a magical savior. Obama allowed a few reporters and refused to permit cameras into the session where he spoke, but his words were caught : "“Do not wait for the perfect message, don’t wait to feel a tingle in your spine because you’re expecting politicians to be so inspiring and poetic and moving that somehow, ‘OK, I’ll get off my couch after all and go spend the 15-20 minutes it takes for me to vote. Because that’s part of what happened in the last election. I heard that too much. Boil it down. If we don’t vote, then this democracy doesn’t work....I’ll be honest with you, if I have a regret during my presidency, it is that people were so focused on me and the battles we were having, particularly after we lost the House, that folks stopped paying attention up and down the ballot." • Those in attendance say Obama didn't talk about immigrant families being separated at detention centers or the travel ban or other recent rulings from the Supreme Court that have been dismantling his agenda. He didn't mention Joe Crowley’s shocker primary loss. He only obliquely touched the “Me Too” movement, saying that the current Republican leadership believes in “women staying in their place in all kinds of ways.” • But, Obama noted that Republicans and Democrats tell “different stories” : “There’s a fundamental contrast of how we view the world. We are seeing the consequences of when one vision is realized, or in charge.” Thursday night’s event was a booster for the DNC, which is still struggling to strengthen and refinance itself a year and a half into the chairmanship of Tom Perez, whose chairmanship has not been dynamic; but focused on bringing down Trump. With the 2020 presidential election already kicking in and the midterms coming in November, Obama told the Democrats that they could learn from Republicans : “They don’t worry about inspiration. They worry about winning the seat and they are very systematic about work not just at the presidential level but at the congressional and state legislative levels.” while Obama said the Democrats will find a new message as the 2020 election approaches, adding that the people who are looking for one now are being ridiculous, he said, but if they needed something to hold them over, he told them his own old slogan still works. • And, despite all, Obama had a message for the Democrat Party, and it reflects what he tried to do as a presidential candidate : "All these people that are out here kvetching and wringing their hands and stressed and anxious and constantly watching cable TV and howling at the moon, ‘What are we going to do?,’ their hair’s falling out, they can’t sleep. The majority of the American people prefer a story of hope. A majority of the American people prefer a country that comes together rather than being divided. The majority of the country doesn’t want to see a dog-eat-dog world where everybody is angry all the time.” Obama reportedly mocked Trump and others for being among the angry : “They’re mad even when they win.” But, Obama is wrong about that. It is the Democrats -- demoralized, without a message or a leader that Americans want -- who are angry. The anger rises daily, as they refuse to leave the 2016 election loss behind and get on with being a major American political party. Nancy Pelosi is angry, and Obama support for her will not change that. Their Deep State, Progressive message -- driven by a media that detests Trump and all conservatives -- is one of hate and division. It cannot work. • • • NOW, DEMOCRATS ARE LEAVING THE PARTY. The media is all over the #WalkAway hashtag on Twitter. It was put there in late June by actor James Woods. But, even Woods didn't foresee what would happen -- the hashtag went viral, striking a nerve hiddan in the heart of the Democrat Party while ProgDems were ignorant of its existence. • It started in new York City. Five million people on Facebook and YouTube have seen the "WalkAway" video by now. It was put there by Brandon Straka, a very handsome gay man who is a hairdresser in New York City. Straka's video says : “Once upon a time, I was a liberal. Well, to be honest, less than a year ago, I was still a liberal. I reject a system which allows an ambitious, misinformed and dogmatic mob to suppress free speech, create false narratives, and apathetically steamroll over the truth....I reject hate.” Straka goes on in the video to tell why he is walking away from the Democrat Party. • In doing so, Brandon Straka, the unlikely liberator and new face of the “silent minority” of Americans who’ve been cast out by family and friends, fired from jobs, and forced into silent social ghettos for their failure to “get it” about how hateful and dangerous Donald Trump is, and why he and all his supporters should be subjected to an ever-expanding social and professional fatwah. Straka published his confessional video on May 26, his life as a New York City hairdresser and aspiring actor has been overtaken by a tidal wave -- he recieves a constant barrage of newcomers’ testimonial letters, videos, and emails, over 1,000 a day. He has two Facebook groups, “The Unsilent Minority” and “WalkAway Campaign.” Those who have the courage post their own video testimonials about the moment when the abuse, rage, and ugliness of the Democrats caused them to finally leave the party and “walk away.” Straka says : “This is so much more than a hashtag on Twitter. This is a testimonial campaign, a grassroots movement that is going to change the political landscape of this country.” • And Epoch Times says : "That’s the astonishing twist here: If these people have been driven into the arms of Donald Trump, who’s left on the left? Those who are walking away are not Hillary Clinton’s 'basket of deplorables,' but rather, in many cases, lifelong Democrats who simply could not take it any longer and have longed for this very moment, when somebody like them would make it safe for them to come out of the closet and speak their minds. From urban gay men to staunch liberal grandmothers, from a punk drag queen with black lips to a tattooed lesbian with a mohawk, those posting testimonials all had a breaking point, a moment when they decided to 'walk away.' Lea Anna Bright, in a mohawk, looks into the camera and says in a slow, simmering voice : “This is a Vice article I am reading right now. It says, ‘The activist left doesn’t give a [expletive] about your calls for civility. Get ready for a summer of rage.’ She looks up. 'This is where the party is going, and this is why I chose to walk away. Peace. Not for me. Bye.' ” • Another man, interviewed by Epoch Times, adjusts his video camera and sits back. The walls behind him are a tasteful grey-blue. He’s a gay, affluent, native New Yorker, and he’s coming out of the second closet of his life : "For Ricky Roberts, the moment came after the Orlando nightclub shootings. 'Trump said he was going to protect gay men, and he did, [with] the travel ban. Hillary was telling Americans not to ‘pick on all Moslems because of this,’ and that did not feel like protection, Roberts says.'I swear to God, wanted to throw my shoe through the TV. At that point I was like, I can’t do it anymore. I really can’t. You know, listen, I’m a gay guy from New York City, but before that, I’m an American, I’m a patriot. I’m now an uncle.' ” Roberts tells Epoch Times : "Democrats : 'From immigration to everything, they are just a disaster. They’re anti-American, anti-common sense, rational -- anything good, they’re against it.' ” • For Straka, it took conversations with his relatives and friends back in Nebraska to help him see that the Democrat fear and loathing campaign around Trump was Fake. He began asking people back home why they had voted for Trump. To his astonishment, they told him about Obama-era regulations that had crippled their small businesses. Straka started to research media canards like the one about Trump supposedly mocking a disabled reporter. When he found that it was a total distortion, he kept going, his anger rising. He told Epoch Times that he eventually became : “completely ‘red-pilled.' And isolated. He told himself that he would have to give up his lifelong dream of becoming an actor if he hit the 'publish' button on his video, but, encouraged by one conservative gay friend, he decided to go ahead. 'This was a matter of the media specifically using and manipulating people’s deepest fears, based on legitimate traumas. Many gay people have experienced very serious homophobia and even physical violence. Can you imagine manipulating a domestic violence survivor’s fears just for political purposes? It’s insane. I was afraid of losing all my friends. As I began posting about these things on social media, people started attacking me and unfriending me. But I thought, ‘You know what, this is too important.’ Maybe it’s the fact that I’m a gay man and I’ve already been through this -- people making up lies about what it means to be gay and trying to shame me. I was like, ‘I’m not doing it. I’m not doing this twice.’ The more resentment I received, the stronger I got. Finally, I thought, ‘To hell with it. I’m just going to blow the lid off this whole thing and make this video.’ ” • Straka says : "Initially, my focus was on the gay community because I was so angry at how they were [being terrorized]. Then I thought, why should I limit it to just us? They’re doing the same thing to black people. And Hispanic people. And frankly, they’re doing the same thing to everybody in one way or another. But it’s really the minorities in America who don’t feel like we have a choice. That’s what they keep telling us over and over: ‘You’re not safe on the right. They don’t want you on the right. They hate you on the right. You’re only safe with us. We are here to protect you.’ Meanwhile, are you kidding me? You’re here to ‘protect’ me? All you are doing is use my fears to scare the [expletive] out of me -- to terrify me and to try to manipulate the way that I vote....If you are a person of color, an LGBT person, a woman or an American immigrant, the Democratic Party wants you to know you are a victim. This is perhaps the Democratic Party’s greatest, and most insidious, lie.” • Libby Albert, one of the WalkAway Facebook group members, said “This is taking off,” citing the snowstorm of thousands of hashtags on Twitter. “It’s kind of incredible.” Another said : “It’s kind of incredible. It’s OK. Walk away.” • The video has garnered 1.3 million views on his Facebook page and has been shared on many other popular pages. It is estimated to have reached some 5 million viewers so far. There are some 27,000 followers of the Facebook group, with new people posting both video and text testimonials every day. Straka calls them “the patriots.” To view the videeo, go to < https://www.theepochtimes.com/viral-walk-away-videos-highlight-growing-movement-of-democrats-leaving-the-party_2578446.html >. • • • HASHTAG #WalkAway HAS LEGS. On Sunday, American Thinker's Clarice Feldman wrote about why #Walk Away is growing : "Victor Davis Hanson, writing in American Greatness, surveys how history’s bad ideas inspire the 'progressives.' He focuses on the plans for court packing, the resegregation of students in universities, the growing movements to censor speech, restaurants’ decision to refuse service to those whose views they disagree with and local governments’ nullification of laws (sanctuary cities). The common themes in all these schemes are innate to progressivism. To survive and spread, exalted righteousness always excuses tawdry methods, given the supposed ignorance and gullibility of the unenlightened. Short-term expediency is well worth the goal of regaining power. Any smell from low tactics later can be perfumed away -- once power is back in the correct hands." But, says Feldman, unfortunately for them, it seems not to be working so well this time. The growing #WalkAway movement, in which lifelong Democrats publicly announce they are walking away from the party, shows they supposed wrong about “the ignorance and gullibility of the unenlightened.” • Brandon Straka is credited with the Facebook movement, says Feldman; and he joined actor James Woods, writers Roger L. Simon and David Mamet, who explained some time ago why the Democrats no longer speak for them. And Kanye West, the black musician and fashion designer, did as well. • The Washington Post, on July 2 "whistled past the graveyard," wrote Feldman, dismissing the movement : "#WalkAway went viral because anticipating a mass conversion of Democrats to its side is an idea that the pro-Trump Internet loves to share....The pro-Trump Internet is really good at convincing its audience that going viral signals popular opinion, that its movement is and always will be #winning. In this case, #WalkAway is the answer to the possibility of a Blue Wave in the 2018 midterms. It doesn’t need to be true to be effective. After all, the hashtag has now become an article in The Washington Post." • But, as Feldman pointed out, four days later, Democratic congressman Dov Hikind, Senator Chuck Schumer’s own New York State Assemblyman from Brooklyn, announced he was walking away from the party and pledged to vote Republican. Hikind castigated Schumer for promising to fight "for Democratic values" while providing little in means of substance : " 'Senator Schumer, in your letter you promise to fight for Democratic values and go on at great length to fully villainize the current administration, but you left out certain facts that my fellow Democrats, to say nothing of all Americans, should also be aware of. You forgot to tell us about the economy. As good as it’s been, economists expect even more growth through the end of the year. That’s very good news. You forgot to tell us about unemployment, which is lower than it has been in decades, while economic confidence is at a 17-year high. You forgot to tell us about tax cuts. I’m part of the middle class and now I’m getting a little extra in my paycheck. I’m happy about that and so are tens of millions of Americans, Senator."[snip] You forgot to tell us about the most remarkable relationship between the United States and our ally Israel ever. Or about moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, which you yourself applauded. You forgot to tell us about the successful dismantling of the Iran Deal...[that] threatened the rest of the world by making it easier for Iran, the leading supporter of world terrorism, to develop nuclear weapons." • In the meantime, as the Democrats double down on 'stupid,' voter satisfaction keeps rising. The satisfaction rate, which Gallup has measured at least monthly since 2001, has now topped 35% three times this year -- a level reached only three times in the previous 12 years (once each in 2006, 2009 and 2016). Satisfaction with the nation is now back to the historical average of 37% for this trend, which was first measured in 1979....After a January 2006 reading of 36%, satisfaction failed to surpass 35% the rest of that year, and with the economic calamities that followed over the next few years, it descended into single digits in two 2008 polls and has subsequently stayed mostly below 30%." • The center left is dying, and Clarice Feldman quotes Matthew Continetti to explain why : "This is a trend that has been building for some time but over the last two years acquired galvanic force. Why? Is it because the nature of the threat that Donald Trump represents to the left? Is it because, as Victor Davis Hanson has argued, Trump denied the left the power it considers its due? Or is it because Barack Obama, despite all of his purple rhetoric and fantastic publicity, was unable even to approach his goal of "fundamentally transforming" America -- because he left the Democratic Party a smoking ruin, and bequeathed a regulatory and policy legacy as fragile as a paper crane? All of these explanations for the resurgent left have some merit. I am especially partial, naturally, to the one that pins responsibility on Obama, who raised the hopes of a generation that the waters would cease to rise only to hand over command of the ship eight years later to Donald Trump and become a Netflix producer. Still, it is important to recognize that the collapse of the center-left is not limited to America. It is a global phenomenon. Obama and Clinton may have broken the Democratic Party, but don't hold them responsible for the destruction of the French Socialists, the fall of the Italian Democratic Party, the takeover of Labor by Jeremy Corbyn, the worst result by the German Social Democratic Party since World War II, and the triumph of López-Obrador in Mexico. If there is a common denominator to these electoral shakeups, it is the politics of migration. The overthrown establishments all benefited from the economics of illegal immigration and used migrants as chits in a humanitarian sweepstakes in which the leader who signals the most virtue wins. Migration became a symbol for the 'flat world' of globalization where not just people but also cultures, goods, and investments flowed freely, borders had little meaning, and sovereignty was pooled upwards to transnational bureaucracy as identity was reduced to racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual characteristics. The fantastic wealth produced by the global marketplace enriched the center-left to such a degree that its adherents became walled off from the material, social, and cultural concerns of the working people they professed to represent. And so middle-class workers who believe a country's leadership ought to be accountable to a country's citizens went elsewhere -- devastating the ranks of the center left and creating a vacuum for the neo-socialists of the twenty-first century." • But, that hollowing out of the center-left has also been the reason that more Americans are moving to Trump. He represents the center-center-right-conservative sphere that is the traditional place Americans gather politically. The Progressive-Globalist agenda of violence, uncontrolled immigration and open borders -- with their destruction of traditions and national culture and its high and higher taxation for social welfare programs and law enforcement -- does not fit the culture or values of western nations whose citizens are now revolting against the leaders who espouse these ideas. As Feldman reminds us -- when Bill Clinton and Harvey Weinstein treat women very badly while posing as their champion by supporting abortion, when ProgDems openly support street violence while attacking police for trying to protect those it is aimed at, while ProgDems pretend to care about black people while setting up the systems of dependence, family disintegration, resentment and envy of "white nationalists" that make it unlikely any young black person will ever be able to equally compete for a good job, when Americans are prevented in schools and universities from learning the facts and encouraged to watch CNN, MSNBC and CBS for uninformed opinions to justify their calls to march and scream -- that is a recipe for failure. It may take some time, but Americans are neither gullible nor passive. They know that the Democrat Party platform of high taxes, open borders, identity politics, massive wealth redistribution, calls to violence and censorship, increasing regulatory hamstrings on the economy, and supporting corruption in the UN, Iran, and Palestine are the ticket – to defeat. And, Americans will vote for that defeat in November. • • • DEAR READERS, Americans are beginning to see the Democrat Party for what it has become -- an extreme left, violent, seditious attack dog trying to bring down America, its elected President, and the Constitution that keeps us all free and safe from all sorts of extremism, including the Progressive Democrat variety, by protecting our God-given right to personal liberties, freedom of religion and speech and assembly -- and freedom to vote for the leaders we choose without having a socialist cabal threaten us. • Bravo, Brandon Straka. And welcome to Trump Country. You are safe with us because we are all Americans together, as President Trump, the protector of America, often says -- "We are one people, with one destiny. We all bleed the same blood. We all salute the same flag. And we are all made by the same God."