October 11 was National Coming Out Day. Former Hawaii House representative and 2020 Democratic presidential contender Tulsi Gabbard also came out that day, as the anti-Democratic, anti-LGBTQ, proto-racist, self-aggrandizing cultist she has always been.
In a Twitter video thread, Gabbard announced, “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 & stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms, are hostile to people of faith & spirituality, demonize the police & protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans, believe in open borders, weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents, and above all, dragging us ever closer to nuclear war.”
Gabbard’s Twitter thread ended with this call to action: “I’m calling on my fellow common sense independent-minded Democrats to join me in leaving the Democratic Party. If you can no longer stomach the direction that so-called woke Democratic Party ideologues are taking our country, I invite you to join me.”
She posted her full half-hour-long statement on YouTube.
I’ve been reporting on Tulsi Gabbard since 2004 when she was in the Hawaii state legislature spewing some of the most anti-LGBTQ rhetoric in the country. As Dr. Maya Angelou said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
Unsurprisingly, Gabbard became an instant darling of the worst of the right-wing talk shows from Fox News to Joe Rogan to Newsmax after her announcement, which was, less than a month before midterms, red meat for the GOP which has nothing but Hunter Biden’s laptop, disinformation about gas prices, and hatred of LGBTQ people to offer voters in November, as I wrote last week.
Nevermind that literally nothing that Gabbard said was true or that some Black and queer Democrats already knew who Gabbard is. As Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta noted on Twitter after Gabbard’s announcement, “Wait, Tulsi Gabbard was a Democrat?”
Kenyatta followed that tweet with, “Who will make common cause with all the murderous dictators now?” and posted a link to a 2017 article in The Guardian with the headline, “Tulsi Gabbard reveals she met Assad in Syria, without informing top Democrats.”
Gabbard’s affinity for dictators mirrored then-President Donald Trump’s.
Gabbard was the first Hindu and one of the first two female combat veterans elected to Congress and served four terms in the House. In 2016 she began her move away from the Democratic party when she resigned as vice chairperson of the Democratic National Committee, a role she had held since 2013, asserting it was “rigged.”
Gabbard has since sparred with major Democratic figures, notably Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg. In 2020 Gabbard sued Clinton for $50M, claiming the former Secretary of State had defamed her.
The lawsuit asserted that the former Democratic presidential nominee “carelessly and recklessly impugned” Gabbard’s reputation when Hillary suggested in October 2019 that one of the 2020 Democratic candidates is “the favorite of the Russians.”
Hillary Clinton never mentioned anyone by name, but it was roundly presumed she was referring to Gabbard who had sided with Vladimir Putin as well as Assad.
In her lawsuit, which she later dropped without any response from Hillary, Gabbard said she intended to “hold Clinton and other ‘political elites’ accountable for ‘distorting the truth in the middle of a critical Presidential election’.”
She’s been repeating that GOP rhetoric about “elites” ever since.
Gabbard has also never gotten clear of her virulently anti-LGBTQ past which she had, when she announced her candidacy for president, insisted was due to her father’s influence.
Yet Gabbard literally marched in the streets — as an adult and elected official — for the Alliance for Traditional Marriage, an anti-LGBTQ group run by her father, State Senator Mike Gabbard. The ATM fought against gay rights in Hawaii and helped pass an amendment to the State Constitution that gave the Legislature the power to ban same-sex marriage.
Gabbard also never addressed Trump’s trans military ban during the 2020 presidential election where she and Pete Buttigieg were the only military veterans.
And Gabbard’s final act as a House rep (she declined to run for re-election in 2020) was to introduce a bill titled the “Protect Women’s Sports Act,” that would have denied Title IX federal funding to schools that “permit a person whose biological sex at birth is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls.”
On June 23, Gabbard spoke at a right-wing “Our Bodies, Our Sports” rally to mark the 50th anniversary of Title IX at Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. Later that day, during an interview with Tucker Carlson’s The Daily Caller News Foundation, Gabbard said the Biden administration would “essentially erase women” by adding inclusive language that would expand protections under the law to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” to Title IX.
“They’re saying that there is no such thing as a woman,” Gabbard asserted.
The temptation might be to dismiss Gabbard as an irrelevant hater, but the current political landscape says that’s a mistake. Many presumed Trump would go away after he lost in 2020, but then January 6 happened. And every week Trump has held hate rallies and built a retinue of GOP midterm candidates like Dr. Oz who he hopes will help secure his return to the White House in 2024.
With her announcement, a public launch of a new podcast, and a tour of Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Brian Kilmead and Joe Rogan’s popular talk shows, Tulsi Gabbard just moved to the top of every right-wing pundit’s list of the most likely vice presidential picks for a Trump 2024 run.
She, with Buttigieg, was one of the two youngest 2020 presidential candidates and at 41, would be the youngest GOP presidential candidate for 2024, should she decide to run.
Tucker Carlson said to Gabbard Tuesday, “Every Republican should sound like you” while Rogan mocked pregnant trans men with her on Wednesday.
She’s one of them now.
The GOP has long yearned to beat Democrats to electing the first woman president, and with her good looks, military credentials, anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and long-established anti-Obama, anti-Hillary, anti-Kamala history, Gabbard now looms as a big get for the GOP and a real threat to Democrats. She also ticks another box for the GOP: Gabbard is a woman of color who Republicans can feel comfortable with.
Tulsi Gabbard may be done with the Democratic Party, but she’s not done with us yet. She’s just starting a new — and more dangerous — chapter.