Hawaii’s Tusli Gabbard wasn’t really on my radar until the 2020 Democrat primaries. I’d written here and there about her before that but I’d never really put much focus on her until that fateful moment when she took down Kamala Harris like a lion on a wounded gazelle.
Interestingly, attitudes began to shift around her. Those in the middle of the aisle and conservatives alike began to develop an admiration for her while the left suddenly found themselves with a new public enemy number one. Gabbard didn’t really do much to change people’s minds about her. The right would continue to grow to like her while the left would continue to develop a deep sense of ire around her.
The weird thing was that Gabbard was the best politician up on that stage by and large. She was a Democrat, but she was one that still seemed to have some basis in reality and was one of the few up on that stage who truly had an appreciation for America.
She was, for all intents and purposes, an old-school Democrat.
Gabbard has leaned more into the right since that time, but I’m not even sure that’s just being done because she’s finding a greater audience there. I think it’s more of a development that occurred because the Democrat Party has fled so far to the left that Gabbard has found herself on the right.
The same could be said with many figures such as Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, Glenn Greenwald, and Tim Pool.
Thing is, Gabbard is still a Democrat. She really never stopped being one. She just doesn’t look like one anymore since we’re forced to compare her to figures like Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, AOC, and others. Figures that have drifted so radically to the left that they no longer resemble American politicians but the old soviet aristocrats.
Take this moment from Gabbard, for instance. According to Fox News, the former Hawaii politician
“People in Washington work for us,” she added. “So, for those who are dissatisfied with the direction of our country, who are dissatisfied with the leadership we have, these elections we have coming up in just a few months — both primaries and general elections, and of course the election in 2024 — is our opportunity to have our voice heard.”
“People in Washington work for us” isn’t a sentiment you hear from the left nowadays but it’s a statement of fact. In today’s world, the left has more or less been conditioned to see elected officials as authority figures far more intelligent and wise than us normal citizens. We’re merely peasants and they are nobles dressed in finery and power.
Gabbard seems to be one of the last Democrats who truly understands this.
In the way that Taiwan is the last holdout of China that was before its communist revolution, Gabbard is the last Democrat of the party that was before the party had its own Marxist takeover. She is what the Democrat Party is supposed to be. Like China wants to eliminate Taiwan and erase that reminder, Democrats too would like Gabbard to be forgotten.
Many have hoped Gabbard would become a Republican, and that might come true, but I hope she stays a Democrat and continues to be an example of what the Democrat Party can be. I’ve been saying for some time that the elimination of the Democrat Party is very unlikely but that a shift back to the center absolutely does need to occur.
Perhaps Gabbard can be that guiding light for moderates who wish to take their party back from the radicals that have infected it.
