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The Odd Conservative Love Affair With Tulsi Gabbard
Townhall.com ^ | October 24, 2019 | Kurt Schlichter

Posted on 10/24/2019 1:46:58 AM PDT by Kaslin

I think I know what the deal is with all the gushing adoration Tulsi Gabbard has somehow managed to wrangle from ordinarily sensible conservatives. Think of a regular guy walking down the hall in high school, and the head cheerleader passes by and says, “Hi.” The dude’s going to think she’s awesome. Of course, just because she is polite doesn’t mean Regular Joe is ever going to take her to the prom.

Tulsi gets Strange New Conservative Respect for several reasons, but the primary one is that she doesn’t seem to hate our guts. She is what an opponent should be – an opponent, not an enemy. Let’s face it – the mainstream Democrat Party hates our guts, and given its malignant druthers it would strip us of our First, Second, and probably Third Amendment rights in order to make sure that we never, ever have a say in our own governance again. Then, with us silenced and disarmed, it would take our money, corrupt our children and generally oppress us in ways that make today’s punitive straw bans look tame. If you don’t believe that a scary number of mainstream lefties want us Normals enslaved or dead, well, you’re either in denial or not on social media.

Make no mistake – Tulsi is not one of us conservatives, though the kind of leftism she embraces (which owes a lot to the socialism of Bernie Sanders) shares some superficial similarities to the populism that has swept the GOP base. In many ways, we share her critique of an inept, corrupt ruling caste eager to send non-elite citizens off to fight their endless, mismanaged wars. We also share a critique of Big Business as a crony capitalist simulacrum of free enterprise, basically a bunch of rich jerks sidling up to the leaders of both parties to repeatedly shaft us regular folks to pump up a few digits on their balance sheets.

That Tulsi will take on the corrupt leaders of her garbage party, like Felonia Milhouse von Pantsuit, is certainly a welcome change from the lockstep stonewalling we have seen from the others – “Why, I see nothing wrong with Toots McHoover Biden peeing hot then getting 50 grand a month from an oligarch, and if you do you’re racist!” When Mee Maw got into the cooking sherry again and started calling her a “Russian asset,” you knew Tulsi was drawing blood from Ole Granny Reset Button. That charge is particularly amusing since Major Gabbard is an Army officer and a veteran of the elite’s dumb wars – another thing the right appreciates about her. But then everyone is a Russian agent these days. We cons get the same insane idiocy, and not just the president. My Twitter conversations on this topic tend to go like this:

“You’re a Russian traitor of treason just like Trump!”

“I was literally an Army officer in the Cold War.”

“You are betraying America and our allies!”

“I served in NATO for years and have a NATO medal.”

“You love Putin!”

“I served with and helped train Ukrainians, who are fighting Putin’s Russia.”

“See! You admit it!”

Gabbard is far more open to Assad than many of us cons like, but her opposition to the Fredocon warmonger model (like the opposition of many woke conservatives) seems to come from a place of genuine concern for the troops she serves and served with. Unlike most of the rest of her rivals, dead American warriors are not an abstraction. Moreover, you get the idea that, alone among the faux Cherokees, naggy mistresses, and militant furries up there on the Democrat debate stage, Tulsi actually likes America, and Americans.

The Gabbard Left and the Trump Right share the conclusion that our elite sucks and that it has forfeited any moral authority to lead our country, but the similarity ends there. She is not conservative and is not traditional. Just because she has doubts about offing babies in the third trimester, as opposed to supporting abortion until high school graduation, does not make her pro-life. She would take your guns, she would take your money, and she would generally make Barack Obama look like William F. Buckley.

Sometimes we forget that Tulsi is a leftist, and that she would screw up health care, open the borders and impose all sorts of climate hoax nonsense. A key difference from us, when you get past the surface similarities, is that she and her ilk have faith in the idea that government can take on more and more responsibilities, despite the fact that it has demonstrated that it cannot handle those responsibilities it already has, which themselves are mostly far beyond what government should be doing in the first place.

There’s another issue, the fox in the room if you will, that we need to address, and it is not an indictment of Tulsi Gabbard. It’s her storied looks. She is pretty, and she does not give off the man-hating vibe of the rest of her competitors (this also goes for the nominal men on the stage). Tulsi certainly plays it up – those yoga-pants workout videos are not just to reassure us about her cardiovascular fitness. But the fact that she is a woman comfortable with being traditionally feminine gives her a leg up on that squad of bitter, spinster librarians she is running against.

Again, this is not a diss against her. She is a serious person with serious ideas who just happens not to be a typically hateful liberal harridan. This is a recognition that good looks can sometimes act on an unconscious level to make her more attractive (in a meta sense) to those who might otherwise reject her based on her politics. In other words, this is a hit on those conservative males (and it’s mostly males) who go gaga over her pretty face and refuse to see that underneath the mask, it’s really Bernice Sanders.

So, don’t fall for Tulsi Gabbard, because just because we agree on a few things does not mean that her quirky brand of New Age socialism is acceptable. But then again, what she represents in terms of presentation is entirely laudable. She is what an American political opponent should be – a person you can discuss issues with without someone ripping out the other’s throat. We should not aspire to a political culture where we hate the folks in the other party – that current reality is immensely destructive and dangerous. Tulsi represents someone who says “Hi” to us in the hallway, and who we can say “Hi” right back to with no expectation of ever taking her to the prom.

If Tulsi Gabbard became Chairperson of the Central Committee of the socialist dictatorship our garbage elite is dying to impose upon us, she at least might not pack all of us deplorables off to the Hillary Fun Camps.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: 2020demprimary; conservatives; politics; promilitary; schlichter; tulsi; tulsigabbard; veteran
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To: Kaslin

Great read

Thanks for posting :)


21 posted on 10/24/2019 3:11:43 AM PDT by redinIllinois (Pro-life, accountant, gun-totin' Grandma - mui issue voter)
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To: FreedomPoster

Great meme. Thanks.


22 posted on 10/24/2019 3:19:05 AM PDT by jacknhoo (Luke 12:51; Think ye, that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, no; but separation.)
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To: kb2614

Tulsi Gabbard: Devil or angel?


23 posted on 10/24/2019 3:23:11 AM PDT by jonrick46 (Cultural Marxism is the cult of the Left waiting for the Mothership.)
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To: jonrick46

Devil in disguise. She’s a phony fake.


24 posted on 10/24/2019 3:32:15 AM PDT by HighSierra5
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To: Kaslin

Yeah she look good. Served in the military, great! But she is just another closet-communist. Agrees with most of Sanders stuff so she will lead the USA into Venezuela 2.0 too.

Yeah she is not going full-retard but she will flip-flop like with the impeachment support so all she says is worthless.

I just like that she and the other commies fight amongst themselves.


25 posted on 10/24/2019 3:35:40 AM PDT by knighthawk (We will always remember We will always be proud We will always be prepared so we may always be free)
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To: Kaslin

What Kurt is saying about Gabbard is the same as what Reagan said about JFK: “Under that tousled boyish haircut is the same old Karl Marx!”


26 posted on 10/24/2019 3:35:47 AM PDT by cotton1706
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To: duckman
Not Tulsi. This is a picture of that Indian chef.

Bump

27 posted on 10/24/2019 3:38:15 AM PDT by Doofer
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To: HighSierra5

Google has the photo I posted as Tulsi Gabbard. However, I find out that it’s actually Padma Lakshmi. I have seen similar photos of Gabbard. Padma and Gabbard could be twins!


28 posted on 10/24/2019 3:38:18 AM PDT by jonrick46 (Cultural Marxism is the cult of the Left waiting for the Mothership.)
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To: Kaslin
She's a LibTaint John McCain.

Wait, so was McCain!

29 posted on 10/24/2019 3:57:35 AM PDT by Feckless (The US Gubbmint / This Tagline CENSORED by FR \ IrOnic, ain't it?)
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To: Kaslin
Another good Kurt Schlichter piece that has been needed. I have pointed out Tulsi Gabbard for a while as an interesting Democrat gadfly who was - to steal a music biz phrase - "a hot looker with a hook." She has said a few sensible things that make her sound a lot better than she is, and I have given her props for them.

But that's all the real due I will give her.

And I should add that she isn't really that "hot," but she is closer to moving that needle than the rest of the gaggle of Democrat women who float at the top of the DC septic tank. She's no Padma Lakshmi, but Padma Lakshmi isn't what she used to be either.

30 posted on 10/24/2019 4:03:05 AM PDT by niteowl77
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To: Kaslin

Good summation.


31 posted on 10/24/2019 4:07:16 AM PDT by Sans-Culotte (With every passing day, I am a little bit gladder that Romney lost in 2012.)
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To: FreedomPoster

Thanx Freedom, I’m awake now. No need for coffee!


32 posted on 10/24/2019 4:07:26 AM PDT by duckman ( Not tired of winning!)
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To: Kaslin

The Tulsi-Clinton tiff is prearranged Kabuki. Trying to package a Rat for maximal appeal.


33 posted on 10/24/2019 4:12:24 AM PDT by caddie (We must all become Trump, starting now!)
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To: riverrunner

Count me among them.


34 posted on 10/24/2019 4:26:36 AM PDT by sauropod (I am His and He is Mine)
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To: Kaslin

The problem is, she could pass as a RINO. She disguised her progressive dogma good enough.


35 posted on 10/24/2019 4:27:05 AM PDT by SERKIT ("Blazing Saddles" explains it all.......)
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To: Luke21

If you have HD TV check her face out. You won’t think she’s so hot. Now if you put a bag over her head....


36 posted on 10/24/2019 4:29:20 AM PDT by HighSierra5
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To: Kaslin

37 posted on 10/24/2019 4:36:21 AM PDT by Right-wing Librarian
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To: jonrick46

Padma Lakshmi...


38 posted on 10/24/2019 4:37:15 AM PDT by EEGator
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To: DMZFrank

No matter how many times you post that, you’re still wrong.


39 posted on 10/24/2019 4:38:20 AM PDT by EEGator
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To: Kaslin

She is another conniving leftist


40 posted on 10/24/2019 4:38:58 AM PDT by ballplayer
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