What might have been the biggest drama of Chicago’s recent Pride Weekend played out at Theater Wit—but not onstage.
#WalkAway is a mostly online, not-yet- nonprofit entity whose mission is to convince LGBT and other minority-group voters to give up their traditional loyalty to the Democrats. It was founded a little over a year ago by Straka, a hairstylist, actor, gay man, and reformed liberal who catapulted to conservative media fame after his six-minute Facebook video detailing his political conversion was retweeted by Donald Trump Jr. It’s been funded by donations (originally on GoFundMe, where it raised $367,000), including a $10,000 contribution by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
Straka and Harlow rushed back to the theater, where they confronted Wechsler. They also recorded this scene on a cell phone. It’s a painful interlude in which Wechsler struggles to find the right words, finally concluding, “I guess I’m just not interested in contributing to the political debate in the way that you guys are doing it.” Straka and Harlow object, claiming that they’re being canceled because of misperceptions and lies and that Wechsler hasn’t even bothered to watch the video of their previous town hall to see what it is that he’s canceling. When Straka reveals that he has his lawyer on the phone, it’s Wechsler who does the “walk away.”
