When former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard announced she was leaving the Democratic Party, she extended an invitation to all “common sense, independent-minded Democrats” to join her. Well, in the last few days, we’ve gotten a pretty clear idea of Gabbard’s idea of “independent minded.” Apparently, it means giving a middle finger to the very foundations of democracy.
She’s seen fit to endorse two people who have essentially glued MAGA hats to their heads—a Senate candidate who can’t bring himself to unequivocally declare that Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 presidential election, and a gubernatorial candidate who is a chest-beating election denier. Even worse, she’s campaigning for the election denier.
On Sunday, Gabbard took to Twitter to endorse Don Bolduc, who is challenging Sen. Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire.
Gabbard quickly put action behind her words, joining Bolduc on the campaign trail in Loudon, New Hampshire. Watch coverage from WMUR-TV in Manchester.
What Gabbard apparently doesn’t want us to know is that Bolduc has forgotten the meaning of that oath. He spent the better part of a year openly promoting the Big Lie, and was one of 124 retired brass hats who claimed the election was rigged in favor of Joe Biden. Those were big reasons that the state and national Republican establishment swallowed hard when Bolduc won the Republican nomination.
Bolduc has hedged somewhat since winning the nomination. On the day after the Republican primary in New Hampshire, he claimed that he now believed Biden won even though the election was shot through with fraud. Earlier this month, however, he reversed himself again, now saying he couldn’t say one way or the other whether Donald Trump had victory stolen from him.
It says a lot about Bolduc that he can even think about running for the Senate when he can’t unequivocally acknowledge Biden won the 2020 election fair and square. And it says just as much about Gabbard, herself a veteran, that she has no qualms about endorsing him.
Then again, Gabbard’s next endorsement said even more about her. On Monday, she endorsed Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor of Arizona.
Ironically, after hailing Bolduc for upholding the oath that he took to defend the Constitution “against all enemies, foreign and domestic”—an oath that she herself swore—Gabbard has gone all in for a woman who has shown herself to be the very definition of a domestic enemy. She has openly and unashamedly promoted the Big Lie, and even went as far as to slam her main opponent in the Republican primary for failing to endorse the Big Lie. True to form, she has refused to commit to accepting the results of the election if it ends in her being defeated by Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.
But none of that apparently matters to Gabbard. She introduced Lake at a Republican forum in Chandler on Tuesday night.
As far as I’m concerned, Gabbard isn’t just telling us who she really is. She’s yelling it from the rooftops through a bullhorn. Granted, she gave some pretty loud hints about who she really was when she claimed that WikiLeaks “spurred necessary change”—and the fact that it exposed thousands of people to identity theft be hanged. In so doing, Gabbard effectively disqualified herself from ever running for office again.