Tulsi Gabbard Quits the Democratic Party, Takes Job at Fox News, and Endorses Republican Candidates

When Hillary Clinton said that Tulsi Gabbard was being groomed by the Russians to be an asset, she was slapped with a $50 million lawsuit. Mitt Romney accused her of telling "treasonous lies." He was hit with a cease-and-desist letter with the threat of a lawsuit if he didn't comply. 

My point is that Republicans in both parties have said things about her that they cannot back up with evidence. I can easily support an argument that the Democrats became Republicans during the Clinton administration, which is about the same time that the Tea Party was founded by Newt Gingrich. As I said about Hillary and Romney making arguments that Gabbard was being groomed by the Russians or was treasonous, they both chose to shut up rather than support their claims. 

However, many things have occurred since those days. Tulsi Gabbard quit the Democratic party to become independent. She took a job as an analyst at Fox News where she often substitutes for Tucker Carlson on his show. Worst of all, she endorsed several Republican candidates over Democratic candidates. 

If you consider only the sequence of events, one could conclude that Tulsi Gabbard is now truly a Republican and not independent as she claims. However, that claim cannot be proven by what the former representative from Hawaii says. She says her message is one of unification and not partisanship. If you recall, people first noticed her when she gave up her succession to power within the Democratic party by giving up her seat on the DNC to support Bernie Sanders against Hillary Clinton. 

I continued to support her during her run for president in 2020. I was critical of the DNC for making rules to keep her off the debate stage despite that she qualified to be there, especially when they made new rules to let the Republican former mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, on the debate stage. She continued to spread her message of love through town hall meetings where she was a star despite knowing that it made it impossible for her to win the nomination on her merit. When it came down to it, she endorsed the eventual nominee in both 2016 and 2020.  

The Democratic party quit on her long before she quit the party. Still, I personally didn't like her endorsement of Republican candidates over Democratic opponents. 

I was particularly disappointed about her endorsement of J.D. Vance over Tim Ryan. When I looked up why she would do that, I found that she had sparred with Ryan several times when they were colleagues in the House. Ryan outspent Vance by two-to-one for the seat, but both campaigns accepted dark money donations. Personally, I like Ryan's talk about Democrats needing to represent the blue-collar workers from the rust belt who shower after work, but Vance is a veteran who wrote about being bullied and his family being dysfunctional in his book Hillbilly Elegy. Ryan was an athlete whose popularity served him well in politics; Vance is younger and intellectual, but he also supported Trump in 2020 and he was against the Respect of Marriage Act. To me, both Ryan and Vance fail on the main progressive issue of getting money out of politics, but Ryan is on the right side of social issues that matter to me.

However, I once defended her right to make those endorsements just like she currently defends my right to disagree with her. It was part of the oath that I once took, and she continues to take, to defend the Constitution.

It is easier to explain why she took a job at Fox News: they offered her a job. The reason she did not become an analyst for one of the other networks is also easily explained: they didn't offer her a job. She was hired because of her willingness to call out people in the party, just as she did when she confronted them face-to-face on the debate stage.

Without nitpicking her appearance-by-appearance on Fox News, I find myself mixed on some of her stands. For example, she does not support the rights of trans people to make their own decisions about their bodies. To me, it is not whether there are more than two genders. Her stand violates the premise I have regarding medical decisions being the business of the patient and the doctor. To paraphrase it into context, the premise that I base my conclusion upon is this:

I believe my medical decisions should be made between me and my doctors, and my statement wouldn't change regardless of my sexual identity. 

So, while I oppose her position on trans rights, I find myself in agreement with her that trans women should not be allowed to participate in sports and athletics as women. I think many people who otherwise support LGBTQ+ rights struggle with this conflict, if they are honest with themselves. 

She quit the Democratic party a few months ago. She said that the party was run by war-mongering elitists who work for a few rich and powerful big-money donors rather than supporting the constitutional premise that government is of, by, and for the people. More recently, she criticized Democrats who passed the budget bill without questioning some $45 billion more in military spending than what was asked for. 

Two notable progressive caucus members did not vote in favor of it. AOC voted against the bill, and Rashida Tlaib voted present. AOC cited its strong support for immigration enforcement as her reason for voting against it, while Tlaib cited out-of-control spending by the military coupled with the lack of oversight and accountability as her reason to vote present. All the other progressive caucus members voted to pass the bill along with all the other Democrats and nine Republicans. It is likely that Tulsi would have voted similarly to either AOC or Tlaib based on her comments and her history of standing up against the party on matters of defense. 

I will defer to her on matters of defense and foreign affairs. I am a veteran. I am most proud of the times I served as the military presence at the funerals of Air Force veterans as a member of the Honor Guard. Tulsi Gabbard is a Lt. Col. in the Army Reserves and served on House committees that required her to have top secret clearance. Our understanding of the issues is not the same, and it is her opinion that carries more weight for me for two reasons: she knows more than I do when stating her opinion, and she, like my grandchildren, has more riding on the future than do people my age. 

Lt. Col. Gabbard has something that Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and I don't have, which is about forty more years of life expectancy.

I also find myself mixed about her using God as the uniting force needed in this country. It seems the Christian right is causing a lot of the problems claiming that God is on their side on polarizing issues. However, Tulsi Gabbard is not Christian. She is Hindu. She talks of God as love. She talks about the aloha spirit as the spirit of love. So, while I'm not a huge fan of solving political divides through God, somehow this young patriot does it such that I trust my grandchildren's interests in the hope she has for the future.