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The reason why Tulsi Gabbard is leaving the Democratic Party

Tulsi Gabbard has long been a controversial figure in the Democratic Party... now she has decided to leave. Why?

Update:
Tulsi Gabbard, surfista y congresista de los Estados Unidos.
Abraham Williams (Instagram)

Many political commentators have long called Tusli Gabbard out as a conservative who masks herself as a Democrat as a way to garner greater public support. Today, many of those suspicions were proven true with the former-Congresswomen from Hawaii bidding farewell to the Democratic Party. Although Gabbard did not immediately join the GOP ranks, her renewed coziness to Fox News indicates the direction she is moving in.

Last month, Gabbard filled in for Tucker Carlson when he was out on leave. In describing the FBI raid on Mar-A-Lago, she said, “The FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago changed the country we grew up in, we grew up believing that government will apply the law equally to all Americans.” For Gabbard, the search was simply a political stunt by the “Biden regime” to go after political dissidents.

“Wokeness” is driving Tulsi Gabbard from the Democratic Party

In a video posted across her social media profiles, Gabbard said, “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.”

Much of the criticisms lodged at Democrats as “wokeness” relates to the party’s support of transgender youth and immigrants. For progressives in the party, these efforts do not go far enough, but Gabbard, on the other hand, has had enough.

Support from Anti-LGBTQ legislation

Particularly shocking for many party members was her support of Florida’s Don’t Say Gay bill. For Gabbard, the Florida law “bans government and government schools from indoctrinating woke sexual values in our schools to a captive audience.” What exactly “woke sexual values” are is not disclosed by Gabbard, who only warmed up to the idea of same-sex marriage in the early 2010s. Before embracing a more LGBT-friendly position, Gabbard had been a proponent of electroshock and conversion therapies for minors which the medical community has categorically debunked as a way to alter a person’s sexual orientation.

Though, for many who have been following Gabbard’s trajectory, her support for the homophobic legislation did not come as such a surprise since. Additionally, during her time in Congress, she has introduced transphobic bills that have failed to garner any traction within the party.

Gabbard shares GOP’s anti-immigrant sentiment.

Accusations of Gabbard’s reactionary tendencies have been exacerbated recently after she echoed the criticisms of many far-right commentators on the topic of immigration. Gabbard managed to offer her support without directly praising Donald Trump and his administration’s cruel actions to limit immigration from Central and South America. These opinions diverge significantly from Democrats of all stripes, who have celebrated the return of some pre-Trump immigration policies that make it slightly easier for those seeking asylum to have their claims heard.

Gabbard’s anti-interventionism

Unlike formally mainstream conservatives like President George W. Bush, Tusli Gabbard is what is known in the land of ideology as a paleoconservative or a neo-conservative. This brand of conservatism is much more isolationist, believing, like Donald Trump, that the United States would be better served by not engaging in direct wars with other states or non-state actors.

Some may argue that this position is quite progressive, and to be clear, it is not. Neo-cons often support limiting immigration on ethnic grounds that the country should stay “pure.” Gabbard has supported authoritarian regimes, including Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

While the former Congresswoman says she is against “regime change wars,” she has also described herself as a “hawk on terrorism.” This position has led her to praise the actions of Assad and Putin in Syria for fighting ISIS, even as international organizations document the massacre of Syrian civilians.

In recent days, Gabbard has changed her tune on Russia, calling out its abuses and warning that a nuclear option should be avoided and fought against by all Russians.

Gabbard, like many others from progressives to those of a more conservative-leaning, believes that a negotiated ceasefire between Europe, the United States, and the Kremlin is the only way to end the conflict in Ukraine. And while those to her left support a negotiated peace agreement for the sake of the Ukrainian people, Gabbard, in a neo-conservative vein, focuses on the cost of the war for American consumers. These concerns are similar to those she advocated for when calling to end the war in Afghanistan. In the early 2010s, when asked about her position on the war in Afghanistan, she rarely, if ever, spoke to the catastrophic consequences the conflict had for Afghan civilians, instead focusing on the trauma of losing fellow servicemembers during her tour. It is, of course, an entirely defensible position. Still, her general inability to widen the perspective is troubling for progressives -- many of whom do not want to be labeled as pro-Russia because they criticize the actions of NATO.

The political future of Tulsi Gabbard is uncertain, but many are speculating that she may still have aspirations to sit in the Oval Office; it just may be as a Republican.