Alternate headline: Closet Republican finally comes out!
Kidding aside, former Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has sounded a lot more like a Republican for years than a Democrat. The last time she was espousing more left-of-center ideas was perhaps during the 2020 Democratic primary when she ran for president. After giving Hillary Clinton and then-candidate Kamala Harris a solid debate thrashing, Gabbard slunk away from the presidential campaign with no primary wins.
She did, in the process, become a watchable political analyst for Fox News and a reliable bomb thrower by calling out her own party on its seeming desire to start wars and eliminate the female gender by devouring woke transgender ideology.
Well, as of today, Gabbard no longer considers herself a Democrat which she explains in her own words:
…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.
— Tulsi Gabbard ? (@TulsiGabbard) October 11, 2022
She makes many, many valid points that the modern Democratic Party no longer resembles the party of five or ten years ago. Since the “defund the police” movement caught fire and outright hatred developed openly toward people of faith, Democrats have sowed more division among various lines than practically any other political institution.
Gabbard’s calling on other Democrats to join her though I suspect most of her current followers are already pretty right-of-center. She’s been an independent voice among those in her party and a voice that has become more and more unwelcome.
Some have made the comparison between Gabbard and Rep. Liz Cheney among the GOP. It’s true that Cheney seems to have a vendetta of her own but that vendetta is focused on one person and one person only. If Trump disappeared tomorrow, Cheney would still call herself a “Republican” because she still aligns with the party on most issues, she just hates Trump. Cheney feels a personal sense of duty (or whatever you want to call it) toward trying to erase Trump and “MAGA” from the Republican Party. Good luck with that since it seems like MAGA erased Cheney from its’ lone at-large Congressional seat.
Gabbard’s departure and feelings are different. It’s the entire Democratic Party platform she can’t stand with any longer and it’s a platform that she has not been truly aligned with for several years now.
It’s worth noting that when she exited the 2020 presidential campaign, she fully endorsed and supported Joe Biden. In other words, she wasn’t ready back in 2020 to shed the party and go full-blown MAGA. Perhaps she felt she still had a future somewhere among the wider Democratic Party base. As years went on it became clear she was better suited as a regular guest on Tucker Carlson rather than trying to fight within the confines of her own party.
It’s possible that Gabbard, with her insight as a long-time Democrat, will provide an off-ramp for some who agree with her sentiment but don’t know how to define it or are afraid to speak ill of their own party. Writing at the Federalist, Evita Duffy points out the 8 reasons why Gabbard left the Democratic Party and urges readers to share them with their Democratic voting friends hoping they’ll see the light.
For now, the only question is how long before talk of a Trump-Gabbard 2024 ticket starts around the political water cooler. Over/under is 2 days.
