Edited by: Fern Sidman
Former Hawaii congresswoman and 2020 presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard has announced her intention of departing from the Democratic party, calling it an “elitist cabal of warmongers,” as was reported by the Guardian of the United Kingdom.
In a video announcement posted to Twitter, she said: “I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic party that is under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers who are driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue and stoking anti-white racism.”
She also said that today’s Democrat leaders do not believe in freedom or the ‘God-given rights that are enshrined in our Constitution.’
In 2012, Gabbard became the first Samoan-American voting member and Hindu elected to Congress, but her views have often sat uncomfortably with the Democratic party, as was reported by the Guardian. In 2016, the then congresswoman from Hawaii announced she was leaving the Democratic National Committee to endorse Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (I) for president, the report indicated.
Her perspectives on foreign policy have often clashed with that of the Democratic party line and she received heat for her divergent views. In 2013, Gabbard was criticized for voting against a bipartisan House resolution condemning anti-Muslim violence in the state of Gujarat. The 2002 Gujarat riots left more than 1,000 dead, a majority of whom were Muslim, and were widely attributed to Indian PM Narendra Modi’s stoking of sectarian fires, according to The Guardian report.
Gabbard said there was “a lot of misinformation” surrounding the violence and has praised Modi on various occasions. She met with him on his visit to the US and even spoke at a fundraising event for his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) back in 2014, as was reported by The Guardian.
In a debate during the 2020 presidential race, Gabbard caught flak from then candidate Kamala Harris for not calling the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, a “war criminal”, after she attacked Harris on her record as a California prosecutor. The Guardian reported that as a US army veteran, Gabbard paid a clandestine visit to Syria in 2017 and met Assad on what she called a “fact-finding mission”. She expressed skepticism about the atrocities carried out under Assad’s leadership.
One of the people who came down hard on Gabbard for taking the trip to Syria for the voicing skepticism about Bashar al-Assad’s role in atrocities directed at his own citizenry was the late Arizona Senator John McCain. McCain, who was a Republican and ran for the presidency along with running mate, Sarah Palin said of Gabbard’s trip to Syria: This “kind of legitimizes a guy who butchered 400,000 of his own people”.
The Guardian of the UK also reported Gabbard made the claims about the Democratic party during the debut of her new YouTube show The Tulsi Gabbard Show, the first episode of which was uploaded on Tuesday.
In August she filled in for talk show host Tucker Carlson on his nightly Fox News program.
On Wednesday, Gabbard joined radio talk show host Glenn Beck to further elaborate on why she decided to sever ties to the Democratic party and what motivated her to do it at this juncture in time.
When Beck asked her why she made the decision to leave the party that she had belonged to and why she chose this moment in time to do so, Gabbard responded by saying:
“Glenn, you know, you and I have had a lot of great conversations. And so many of those conversations, often I find have been censored around freedom. As you mentioned. The Bill of Rights.
These fundamental principles our country was founded on. The things that are most important, that really bind us all together as Americans. And when it comes right down to it, today’s Democratic party does not believe in freedom. They don’t believe in freedom.
And because they don’t believe in freedom, and because they are, you know, the party is led by fanatical ideologues, they are actively trying to undermine those God-given rights that are enshrined in our Constitution. They’re actively seeking to undermine our freedom of speech. They want to control what we say and what we think. They are attacking our religious liberty. They cannot handle it, when people dare to speak out. Or even question, question the things they’re trying to employees on us as a society, and the way they foment fear.
You see this cancel woke culture. They try to silence anyone who dares to disagree, or anyone who dares to expose the insecurity — their insecurity, and the weakness in their arguments and narratives. And for a whole host of reasons, and you can go and read my statement on Substack, or listen to — you know, I spoke about this in detail. On the Tulsi Gabbard Show. But it really all comes down to freedom. And I can no longer be associated with today’s Democratic Party, that is so actively anti-freedom.”
When Beck asked Gabbard what she thought caused the Democratic party to change as radically as it has over the last few decades and especially the last five to ten years, Gabbard responded by telling Beck and his audience:
“You know, I can’t tell you specifically, what the cause is. But what I have experienced, and what I’ve seen, is, you know, going back 20 years ago, when I first ran for statehouse here in Hawaii, and I looked at, okay. Well, which party do I want to affiliate with, at that time?
When I looked, and Hawaii’s past especially, I saw the Democratic Party, big tent, inclusive party, respecting people who hold different views on different issues. But really rooted in the foundations of justice and fairness and freedom and being a champion for the little guy, for the working class Americans.
And that party is not recognizable today. It is a — it is a party of the elites, by the elite and for the elite.
It is a party of warmongers, who are firmly in the grips of the military industrial complex.
It is a party that has left the people behind. And it’s been taken over by these fanatical ideologues, who are blinded by their ambition and desire for power.
You know, I’ve been through this, over the years, and I’ve seen how, not only do they try to destroy people, who disagree with them. Even if you just don’t say anything about whatever their cause at the moment is. Because it changes. Then their response is, well, you are complicit. If you are silent, you are complicit. You’re part of the problem.
Then if you say, well, okay. Fine, I agree with that. It’s not enough. Unless you get out there with your megaphone and stand on the street corner. And scream loudly and march in the protest. And proclaim your allegiance to whatever their cause of the moment is.
Then it’s not enough. They’re not convinced. The goalposts keep changing. They don’t believe in truth. And when people don’t believe in truth. And there are no boundaries to what they are propagating in our society. Which, frankly, poses a great danger and risk.”
