February 23, 2024 - 1:10pm
A decade ago, Tulsi Gabbard was on the fast track to the highest levels of Democratic politics. Now, she has a spot on Donald Trump’s vice-presidential shortlist and is set to headline a keynote at Mar-a-Lago. Long fodder for journalist speculation, Gabbard’s career arc reveals the diminishing influence of the countercultural Left in the Democratic coalition.
Gabbard burst onto the national political scene as one of the future leaders of the Democratic Party. In 2012, she was tapped to speak at the Democratic National Convention and then won a landslide election to Congress. Shortly after that, she was elected vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. The party’s establishment was clearly invested in the success of this freshman House member from Hawaii.
Her political identity, however, was always complicated. A veteran of the Iraq War, she had entered politics in the early 2000s as a critic of same-sex marriage (a position she later repudiated), and was willing to criticise Barack Obama in some high-profile TV hits. But, by and large, she clearly fit in as a member of the socks-and-Birkenstocks countercultural Left. She supported drug legalisation, the expansion of government healthcare guarantees, campaign-finance reform, and gun control. On foreign policy, she criticised American-led “regime change” efforts in the Middle East and elsewhere.
As with many others, Gabbard’s road to Trump went through Bernie Sanders. The 2016 primary dramatised the acute identity crisis afflicting the Democratic Party. While the party still anchors itself in the iconography of the working-class, New Deal coalition, in reality it is increasingly the redoubt of the wealthy and college-educated. Gabbard was a major supporter of Sanders, but Hillary Clinton’s victory in the 2016 primary cemented the party’s identity as representing the winners of the neoliberal economic dispensation. Her failure to win the 2020 Democratic candidacy for president was the final blow.
So who changed: Gabbard or the party? Integral to the American Left’s counterculturalism was a suspicion of centralised authority and a glamorisation of the outsider. This is not a good fit for a party allied with the managerial foes of “populism”. Many in the Washington establishment (which is increasingly coterminous with the Democratic elite) view Gabbard’s long-held scepticism of military interventions abroad as tantamount to support for dictators and tyrants. In her October 2022 video disassociating herself from the Democrats, she accused the party of being under the control of an “elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness”. This was countercultural signalling in at least three senses, as her statement positioned itself against an “elite”, attacked her foes as “warmongers”, and tilted against “wokeness” (the reigning ideology of the bureaucratic elite).
In similarly convention-breaking form, Trump has made MAGA into a countercultural hub, featuring critics of American interventions abroad, and outsider politician-activists such as Vivek Ramaswamy. It thus makes sense that Gabbard could become at least a guest star in the Trump Show.
It should be noted, though, that Gabbard’s attacks on “warmongers” are at odds with the hawkishness of other key members of Trump’s inner circle, and her past record on cultural issues clashes with the views of the social conservatives who have been a traditional bulwark of the GOP. All this might give her long odds of being selected as Trump’s vice president. However, winning over the countercultural Left also seems an important part of Trump’s vision for MAGA politics, so it’s not surprising that he is considering offering her some seat at the table.
As the super-expensive Tesla has replaced the dinged VW bus and the family station wagon as the emblem of Democratic politics, members of the weird countercultural Left find themselves less welcome. Trump and other populists sense an opportunity in that discomfort.
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SubscribeMy money would not be on Gabbard as the VP. I’m doubtful about Vivek too.
I think he’ll most likely go with someone from solidly within the ranks of the GOP establishment – a tried and true Republican like Tim Scott.
Scott would be a great pick.
But Gabbard has a lot of popularity among the republican base, the new base, not the old one.
You cannot think of either party as representing who they used to. Seriously, the Teamsters just donated to the RNC. Trump’s support among minorities and the working class is like nothing a republican has ever seen.
The democrats are no longer the party of the unions and the working Joe. They are now the party of Wall Street, Silicon Valley and academia.
This realignment is not done yet and it is painful and it is confusing to a lot of people but it is happening. The Mitch McConnel’s and the Mitt Romeny’s look more comfortable in the democrat ranks than the new republican ones.
Gabbard would have a lot of appeal. She has a generally populist philosophy, she is a woman of color, a veteran and is a darn good speakers and debater.
“Gabbard has a lot of popularity among the republican base, the new base, not the old one…..”
New, old, whatever, nobody that would call themselves a Republican would endorse Tulsi Gabbard for dogcatcher. She may not march in lockstep with the proggies, but she still carries their membership card.
Teamsters just donated to the RNC.
Baffling: Biden is bringing back jobs, creating massive amount of new ones, then again, the Teamsters Union was once beholden to the mafia, now just a political one with the Trump lot.
Gabbard has also gone from being a keen destroyer of gun rights to realising how important they are. She is not just disgusted with the current Democrats but has also converted to many traditional Republican causes.
And….ya gotta admit, Trump would get a kick out of putting a former democrat star, one the democrats rejected for Hillary, up as the republican VP nominee.
I could see him wanting to rub some salt in their wounds.
I could see him running ads with her speaking at the democratic convention and with all the nice things the democrats used to say about her.
That would be very Trumpian.
Oh, Lord, make it so.
Even Trump isn’t stupid enough to think that a Democrat reject is going to strengthen his ticket.
And what wounds are those? Gabbard is a nobody and very far out on the lunatic fringe. She is not missed…
Ah, as usual just dismissive, might be productive to ask why she has took this journey, especially as Biden is now delivering for the working class,
Which is a massive contrast to what Starmer plans when he get in here.
Because she is dumb enough to think that Trump might have something for her.
What can you possibly think Biden is delivering to the working class?
Integral to the American Left’s counterculturalism was a suspicion of centralised authority and a glamorisation of the outsider. — > Until the left became the centralized authority, at which point the dynamic changed. Because power does that to people. I have no idea if Gabbard is a suitable running mate and it may not matter. She can be an ally in some instances.
If you’re looking for 100% agreement with anyone, it’s not going to happen and if it does, be skeptical. As with Trump, Hillary also accused Gabbard of being a Russian puppet. Gabbard is also the person who eviscerated the current VP during the 2020 cycle, saying the parts that were supposed to remain quiet out loud.
Our country has far deeper systemic issues than “populism” and whatever imagined threats flow from that. Away from the rabid partisans, there is a belief that DC is basically a uniparty, an elected oligarchy protected by the permanent state. Collectively, these groups and the donors who fund them are disconnected from the public at large. They think we work for govt instead of the other way around.
While I support Trump, especially given the alternative, the task ahead requires more than the efforts of one person and a long timeframe than one term. The debt, unchecked immigration, regulatory creep, and culture of censorship are not easily fixed. Of course, this assumes that the political class is interested in fixing anything that impacts its constituency, which mostly reveals the old saying behind the validity of assuming things.
What you say about your country also resonates here in the UK. We’re in thrall to a paternalistic, left-liberal uni-party. Not intentionally malign, but weak, divorced from reality, culturally and economically incompetent, and with a patrician disdain for the values of the working classes.
Tories are left/liberal? in what universe?
Though agree to a point about Starmer’s labour.
Biden’s New New Deal programmes, etc, coming to truly huge amounts should have kept her in, Biden is the heir to Rooseveldt, Bernie has said that: but of course like in UK, global, diversity issues come first
Pick Tulsi, please.
People forget that Trump is a social Liberal. He is also a peace president. Gabbard would be a good fit for VP. It would also set her up to run for President after Trump. Trump wants to burn down the Dem and Rep establishments.
Gabbard is a nutcase. As such would make an excellent choice for running mate for Trump.
What has she done that is nutty?
Have you heard her speech from CPAC? Utterly lunatic.
……[chuckling noises]
Thanks for that detailed reply, full of actual content and rich in description.
Nobody who supports the party of allowing men to destroy women’s sports, putting rapists in women’s prisons, child mutilation, censorship collusion with Big Tech, racial divisiveness, unlimited and unchecked immigration, eliminating cah bail for violent felons, pornography for kindergartens, defunding the police and attempting to eliminate their chief opponent by subverting the Constitution has any business calling anyone else a nutcase. Hope Trump picks Tulsi. Among other things, she would absolutely slaughter Kackling Kamala in the VP debate.
Gabbard visited Al Assad, Syria’s murderous dictator, and thought he was a great guy. Even wrote about it. This is a man who gases children, who jerk and foam at the mouth in their death throes. You can see the footage, too. Yeah, a really great guy. Sorry, I’ll take a pass on Tulsi.
Awful
#MAGAloha
Tulsi is fantastic and more qualified than Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, Joe Biden, or anyone else currently running for president. Her singular talents should not be wasted on being Trump’s VP.
I wish she would have run for Senate from Hawaii. I would not rule Tulsi out and the consideration makes sense. She may not be the VP, and she brings some different views to the table.
The Democratic party is the party of government. Teacher unions, academia, healthcare, non-profits and the federal and state civil service, who are funded by taxes and or government grants. Add in big business, which is regulated by government, media and entertainment, you have a large base of our population that will support Democrats.
Will the working and middle class voters, who are not tied to a government paycheck or subsidy get out and vote and vote for Trump and the Republicans in sufficient numbers? Hard to say as a lot can happen between now and election day. I still think President Biden will win re-election. While Trump leads Biden in nearly all national and swing state polls, the Democrats are doing very well down ballot and no Democrat incumbent trails a Republican challenger. Expect the tails to carry the coat over the line.