OpEd: Tulsi Gabbard: Shunned by Democrats, Welcomed by Republicans
Did you forget about Tulsi Gabbard? Did you just assume she dropped out? Well, she did but it wasn’t until just last week that she announced the suspension of her campaign long after many knew she was still running. Do you not even know who she is? Well, you’re not alone because this is many of us in one way or another. But, why has she been so halfheartedly forgotten? She doesn’t seem like such a bad candidate on the outside. The American Samoan Congresswoman for Hawaii has had a fairly successful political career, and she was at one point considered an incredibly promising up-and-comer in the democratic party. She received praise from Nancy Pelosi in her early years in congress. She’s female, Hindu, a minority, vegan, and a veteran. She’s this virtual super-package of a candidate. Well, she’s not as strong of a candidate as she first might seem.
Let’s start from the beginning of her controversial record but not exclusively in chronological order. When Gabbard was around 16-years-old and in Hawaii, long before she ran for any public office, she assisted her father in a campaign across the islands that spent about $100,000 to fight the legalization of gay marriage. Flash forward to 2002 and she’s elected as a state representative at 21, becoming the youngest woman elected to the Hawaii state legislature. For at time, she continued to support legistlation that did not support gay rights and marriage.
In 2017, she took a trip to the Middle East that she cited as a “fact-finding mission.” While there, she supposedly met with Syrian President and known human rights abuser Bashar Al-Assad. After the meeting, she was skeptical about whether or not Al-Assad had in fact used chemical weapons against civilians. When pressed on this position she filibustered. She did end up taking a position against Assad’s regime but one must wonder why it took her so long to take that position.
During her presidential campaign, she was polling at around 1% most of the race but somehow she received the most coverage by conservative television network Fox News. While on Fox News she has defended many of Trump’s actions such as the post impeachment firings of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and U.S. Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland, both of whom testified to the House for the President’s impeachment inquiry. Not only has she used Fox News as a platform to praise or defend Trump but she has also used it to bash other Democrats. On the air, she referred to Hillary Clinton as a “warmonger” along with a string of other insults directed at the former Senator and First Lady. She has claimed that her fellow Democrats are too scared to come on Fox News like she does. Fox News hosts have framed her as the ideal democrat citing and flaunting her iconic vote of “present” during President Trump’s impeachment trial. This is an option that is neither “yea” nor “nay” but rather just “I’m here.”
The Hawaiian Congresswoman just dropped out last week and I find myself asking, “Why was she in this race for so long when she was doing so poorly?” Maybe it was to gain traction and attention from the American people to help launch a future presidential campaign. Maybe she was in it with the goal to promote an idea of a Democrat being kind of okay with Trump. Or maybe she’s just disconnected from reality. We might never know.