love all the downvotes - Heritage Foundation/AEI trolls sure don't like being found out! #walkaway sounds good in theory. Who wouldn't support a movement to abandon an obsolete political party that no longer serves the interests of its constituents? The Democratic Party has done away with all pretense of working for its "base" - the working class, racial and ethnic minorities, women, LGBTs - assuming these voters have nowhere to go and will vote Democrat no matter what; instead, they slavishly serve the wealthy corporate donors who write big checks to keep the party platform resolutely middle-of-the-road and big-business-friendly. So far, so good - dump these irrelevant fools. But Brandon Straka goes one step further, showing the disillusioned ex-Dems the Light of the Republican Party, as if its brand of stale prefab ideology was somehow an improvement over the Democrats'. While Straka doesn't explicitly tell his fans to join the GOP, he is aware that cult members stripped of their ideology will unconsciously cast about for something else to belong to; by serving up the Republican Party on a silver platter, draped in his ringing endorsement, he all but guarantees these erstwhile liberals will follow him into its clutches. The surface message of #walkaway - that we should think for ourselves rather than embrace the default positions of our preferred political ideology - is solid, but the subtle positioning of conservatism as the true home of liberal values sells out true liberalism, which has been hijacked by a small but vocal minority of SJW "change agents" intent on destroying the Left by amplifying its worst qualities. Liberals must not throw the ideological baby out with the bathwater and cede their territory to these militant pod people. The Republican Party has as little to offer us as the Democrats do. The solution - what we should be #walkingtowards - is a transpartisan third party, one that embodies true liberal virtues like 1. Freedom of expression, speech, the press. A free press, complete with civilized debate and discussion, is integral to enlightened civilization. Self-imposed echo chambers facilitate intellectual stagnation. Censorship comes in many forms, but has no place in a free society. Political Correctness is censorship in tolerance's clothing. Rather than banning "fake news," citizens should develop their critical capabilities to discern truth from lie, as they have been doing since the dawn of the species. Government should not propagandize its own citizens. 2. Anti-war, pro-peace foreign policy. Stop interfering in the affairs of countries that do not concern us and acting as the "world police" to stamp out regimes unwilling to play by our constantly-changing rules. Retire the lie that the US is promoting democracy abroad. Radically reimagine our relationship with so-called "allies" like Israel and Saudi Arabia that habitually manipulate us into wars against our geopolitical interests. End billions of dollars in foreign aid payments to the apartheid, genocidal Israeli regime that violates international law on a daily basis. Apply human rights standards equally instead of picking and choosing who is sanctioned for brutally murdering LGBT people and who suffers economic consequences for refusing to allow the inspection of their nuclear weapons stockpiles. No more "regime change." Withdraw troops from Syria immediately, as well as Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Yemen and the other countries on the PNAC hit list - and all the undeclared conflicts in Africa and elsewhere. Let NATO countries fight their own battles. Lead the world on the path to nuclear disarmament. Reduce the military budget to levels commensurate with reality. 3. Democratization of knowledge. Free or low-cost secondary education, easily financed by a mere rounding error off the military budget; the loosening of copyright regulations such that works in the public domain and the contents of academic journals are freely available online; remove corporate interests and administrative bureaucracy from education. Deemphasize standardized testing. 4. Social safety net. Single-payer healthcare is not a revolutionary idea; most of the "developed world" has it. A sizable housing subsidy could be paid to individual citizens out of another rounding error shaved off the military budget. We need not go full-on socialist, but citizens of the "wealthiest country in the world" should not be homeless, hungry, or bankrupted by medical bills. 5. End corporate welfare. No more bank bailouts. Corporations must pay their taxes. This one is easy. 6. Dismantle the police state. Demilitarize the police force, decriminalize all drugs, vacate nonviolent drug convictions. End private prisons. Disband TSA. End ICE workplace raids and roadside checkpoints. Streamline legal immigration process. 7. Election integrity. Paper ballots, end to black-box proprietary voting machines, independent exit polling. Remove barriers to third-party candidates. ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUkstGscVEY

original posted at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSZ4PC-_cFY - subscribe for more! why are we smiling? if you can't find humor in the collapse of a doomed empire, well, you're going to collapse along with it. Ciara Haley and George Szamuely are joined by the American journalist Helen Buyniski to gaggle about the future of politics in the US and what lies in store for a post-Trump administration. You can find Helen's writings at http://www.helenofdestroy.com/ ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wmor0axCocg