I went to one of her 2020 rallies and it was mainly can’t we all get along/I’m bipartisan/both sides have issues, and almost no policy whatsoever. I assume that was our chance to see the party transition happening in real time.
In her first primary election she presented herself as a typical Democrat, somewhat to the left of the mainstream of the party. She got endorsements from such standard Democratic supporters such as the Sierra Club and Emily’s List.
Remind me how that worked for Chris Christie who, IIRC, was on Trump’s 2016 transition team. But specific to the OP, shouldn’t she have done this a while ago and try for the Vice-President candidacy?
I’m guessing some variant of “You’ll miss me when I’m gone, so LOOK AT WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!”
Basically, she seems to have been a singularly unfocussed candidate, if possibly sincere. And because she couldn’t focus on a single thing, she kept spamming different, often impractical requests to her own party (D). Which didn’t get much attention, traction or success. Combine that with her prior military service, and a full on hatred of terrorism (emphasis on Islamic), despite her claimed hatred of excessive war…
So she’s angry at them, goes independent, and finds she has even less influence, and has a blip of a Presidential rule.
So, she’s angry, disappointed, already hateful on some of the same points as the (R) team, and finds it easy to embrace the hate. Heck, this has happened to some of my coworkers, even friends. There’s some wedge issue, or a single point of common ground they have with Republicans or MAGA (often Religion or Guns) and they can’t STAND the fact that while they may have (formerly) agreed with the Democrats on the other 90% of the issues, not getting respect on that single one means that it’s time to embrace the single issue, and then convert on everything else because they need the acceptance.
Just spitballing. I could be completely wrong, and it’s just that after failing to get any headway was an independent, and having burned her bridges with Democrats, she figures Republican is the only game in town, and is cynically selling out.
I find someone her age going from Democrat to Republican as weird as someone her age taking up cigarette smoking for the first time.
As well as quasi-Democratic supporter Bernie Sanders.
I don’t, in general, buy the argument that farther left and farther right have lots in common, but she perhaps makes an argument for it?
Its pay walled for me. can you give us a summary of the points you found interesting?
For any who may be having difficulty accessing the article (which appears to be ‘free for a limited time’), see if this link works for you.
What is the reason for https://12ft.io/ before the https:// bit?
I removed the suspicious link.
Moderating:
excuse me, anytime the GOP welcomes crazies like Greene and Goebert don’t talk about DEM (shall I add H Cain?)
Why are we surprised that a Putinista has joined the Party of Putin?
I’m not surprised in the least. I don’t know why she waited as long as she did.
I am far too much of a newcomer to speak with authority on the Hawai’i take on Tulsi Gabbard, but here is a piece from Honolulu Civil Beat on the switch - not very in-depth, mostly just a “yeah, no surprise there” shoulder-shrug.
(I don’t think it’s paywalled; apologies if it is.)
From what I read, she presented as a mavericky D, with some added populist seasoning on things domestic, while very noninterventionist and “against forever wars” in foreign matters. So it kind of checks out she’d be succesfull in staying in her seat in Congress in that district. Things apparently began coming unstuck partywise in the 2016 campaign cycle as she was among those who denounced a Clinton coronation.
We already know that oddball personalities and life backgrounds are no hindrance before the voters, that is not something new.
I have labeled the R party the “Reactionary Wacko Traitor” party since about when trump burst on the political scene.
All Rs exhibit all 3 aspects of their triune polestar albeit in varying mixtures. In some of them the Reactionary part is strong. In others the Traitor part. In Gabbard’s case it seems the Wacko part rules her roost.
I feel like I have to add this: I like reading the congress.gov bill tracker, and I go out there and skim every few months to see what my locals are up to. After Gabbard had been voted out of office, and after Congress was out of session, but before her replacement was seated, she introduced 10 or so bills, some of which she was sole sponsor.
Some had titles like “Protect our Civil Liberties Act” (repeal of the Patriot Act, etc), “Late Term Abortion Ban Act”, “Protection of Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Act”, and “Protect Women’s Sports Act”, so it felt pretty clear she was positioning herself toward the right even then, and in the most cynical way possible: by introducing bills that would mostly find themselves bereft of an original sponsor, and destined to die in committee referral, but she could claim if she wanted that she’d “fought” for those things.
The grifting goes back a while.
Around 2016 I worked with a guy fresh out of college and very progressive. He considered Gabbard a rising star in the Democratic party. I wonder what he thinks of her now?
My sole thought about Gabbard going over to the dark side is: good riddance to bad rubbish. Don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.
What they have in common is hatred of the Democratic Party, even if for very different reasons.
There are also plenty of people on the fringe left who just can’t deal with the reality that changes in a democracy tend to be incremental, and they’ve come to view the Democrats as the main obstacle to sweeping change, so the Dems must lose until they are ready to implement it. And when it comes to making the Dems lose, the GOP is their ally.
I’m not saying this makes any sense. This is just what I understand the thinking of many people out on the fringe left to be, to the extent that I’ve been exposed to it.