For a very long time now, former Democratic Congresswoman from Hawaii Tulsi Gabbard has been a problematic figure. Long before she ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2015, Gabbard’s politics and statements belied intensely fascist and some might say sociopathic tendencies to speak out of both sides of her mouth. While she had a solid career initially championing things like universal health care and progressive climate policies, she’s also always been strangely into racist fascists like Narendra Modi.
Since failing to secure much in the way of traction in the Democratic Party back in 2015, Gabbard has searched for purchase in the very lucrative libertarian wing of the right-wing propaganda machine. It wasn’t much more than a lateral shift for Gabbard, who had made her “progressive” bonafides by criticizing President Barack Obama while not really following through with much more than her desire for control and power. She made sure to back this up by proposing right-wing transphobic legislation as she walked out of Congress for the last time in December 2020. She followed that up with more auditions for Fox News airtime, where she lauded “Don’t Say Gay” legislation and claimed it wasn’t extreme enough. Gabbard even got to host Fox News a few weeks ago, keeping Tucker Carlson’s seat warm while he was off doing whatever it is rich-kid homophobes do in their time off.
On Tuesday, Gabbard posted a video where she said, “I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue and stoke anti-white racism, [and] actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms.” There was really no reason to watch the rest of the video since it’s Tulsi Gabbard. However, the responses were delightful.
RELATED STORY: Why don't progressives like Tulsi Gabbard? We can think of a reason or six
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Gabbard apparently still considered herself a progressive Democratic politician as of Oct. 10, 2022. The more cynical among us might see this as her deeming it necessary to go out and find a way to get an interview with a Sean Hannity or a Tucker Carlson or maybe even a Laura Ingraham. It has been a few weeks since she had any meaningful traction in the right-wing world, and a fascist’s got to eat, amiright?
That’s what I said!
So true. But it’s not all bread and roses.
I need a little more analysis.
What’s next for Tulsi?
I wouldn’t be surprised to see that happen actually. Any statisticians in the audience who can crunch the numbers for us?
I’m a visual person, so I’ll need that in a graph.
Gimme some memes.
Let’s get another one in there.
And because it made me laugh ...
After an eruption of even more scandals among Republican Senate candidates, FiveThirtyEight’s Nathaniel Rakich returns to The Downballot this week to discuss the effect these sorts of scandals can have on competitive races; whether Democrats stand a chance to keep the House; and the different ways pollsters create likely voter models.