I have had serious concerns about Tulsi Gabbard regarding her rejection of the Democrat Party and her possible consideration for the VP slot with Trump.
First off, she was a Democrat. In the Tucker Carlson interview, she talks about how her parents raised her to be an independent critical thinker, yet...she was a Democrat.
To me, the simple fact that she was a Democrat belied any contention she actually is a critical thinker. And when she rejected Hillary Clinton, she endorsed Bernie Sanders. In the same interview, she discussed how she is all in on capitalism, yet...she supported Bernie Sanders.
Granted-I fully understand this is certainly a political act, and all politicians are compelled to commit political acts in the course of their duties. But-Bernie Sanders? If it was not a purely political act, there could not have been any squaring of that circle with "critical thinking". I understand that in her role at that time of the Vice Chair of the DNC, she was not supposed to take sides in a partisan debate (Clinton vs Sanders) so she resigned her job as Vice Chair of the DNC to be able to state her case. I think that shows a favorable (to me) character.
So, I have questions about her support for Bernie Sanders. And if she outright states that was a simple political act she was compelled into (being a Democrat and being unable to support Hillary Clinton) I can understand and accept that. But I would rather hear her explicitly state it rather than having to divine it myself.
I also had serious questions about her stance on the 2nd Amendment. That was one of the key issues for me, quite apart from her simply being a Democrat which, in the absence of a unequivocal and vocal break from that party, was the foremost issue for me.
From an article at ConcealedCarry.com, they point out that her past politics related to firearm legislation earned her an F from the NRA and also a 100% endorsement from the Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence. It doesn't get much worse than that.
But in watching her explain why she changed her stance, she explained something that I can completely understand and relate to: that she affirms that she sees the current government/Democrat Party have gone down the road of a weaponized banana republic tyranny, and that apart from the concept of personal defense, the 2nd Amendment is necessary to prevent us from a tyrannical government which ours has become. I accept her rationale.
For me, that leaves her stance on Abortion and Energy as something I have questions about. I have not researched them fully, so I don't have an answer yet.
But I will say this: I was among the most convinced anti-Tulsi Gabbard Free Republic posters, and have called her a snake in the grass and worse. I even took issue with her membership in the Democrat Party as being at odds with all precepts of military service, and denigrated her service on that basis.
All this was because even though I was aware she had left the Democrat Party, I had not, up until today with the Tucker Carlson interview, heard an unequivocal rejection of the Democrat Party from her, in her own words.
Here is why I mention this, and why it is so important to me.
I am a big fan of David Horowitz, specifically in his role of Leftist Apostate.
He was as Leftist as they come in his radical youth, and even played a significant role working for the Black Panthers. But in his role with the Black Panthers, he worked with a woman who served as their legal accountant (Betty Van Patter) and when her body, raped and murdered was discovered, in his heart he knew the truth that she had been murdered by the Black Panthers themselves because they grew paranoid that she "knew too much" and decided to murder her and make it look like the act of a random stranger.
But David Horowitz knew, and had it subsequently verified from a reliable source that the Black Panthers had murdered her.
But for him, the crack widened, and he had to undergo a painful ideological amputation from Leftism that took him nearly ten years to accomplish, and culminated in his vote for Ronald Reagan in 1984, a formerly unthinkable act for him.
David Horowitz, once at the pinnacle of Leftism, had made the break, and become a die-hard, Capital-C Conservative.
And when he made that transition to Conservatism, he publicly bared his soul about it, and explained in excruciating detail why he made that break.
Over the last decade, I have been watching Tulsi Gabbard with alarm as I watched (from a distance) her increasing apparent dissidence with the precepts of the Democratic Party, but did not hear the public baring-of-the-soul from her that made me such a believer in the honesty and depth of the transition undergone by David Horowitz.
In the absence of that, I assumed it was not a full or real conversion, but like Liberals who leave states like California and New York to go to states like Texas and Florida, I fully believed she intended to bring her Leftist principles to the Republican Party.
And I adamantly believed that, in the absence of a concentrated and detailed rejection of the Left on her part, Conservatives should reject her completely, because we already have enough of that. We are being hamstrung by them, sabotaged by them, and outright opposed from them.
So, when I saw this interview, in spite of my misgivings, I forced myself to watch the entire program, and I tried to keep an open mind on the content and human expression of what she said.
In the end, I said in exasperation to a friend: "What the Hell did she ever have to do with the Democrat Party? What?"
What hit me the most about her interview was her obvious (and not feigned) revulsion to the woman interviewed last week who denied our rights come from God. When asked, she answered unequivocally that our rights come from God, and Democrats simply do not care about the Constitution. She explained how this fundamental belief of Conservatives (that we are endowed with unalienable rights from God) is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, and that the Constitution was specifically created to encapsulate that truth.
(It was at this point that I uttered the "What the Hell" exclamation described above.
I understand the possibility that this may all be a political ploy by her to obtain power, but after watching her, viewing her countenance as she said those things, as she spoke about the corruption with insider trading, the war-like dishonesty of international relations, the weaponization of government and the associated tyranny, I could not find myself in disagreement with her, except on the issues that she did not explicitly address that I described above in this post.
I fully retract my statements on her being a Leftist Snake In The Grass. I don't believe it anymore.
And while I accept my skepticism as necessary, I wish I had not had to view her in that light, though I believe I was not left with a choice in the absence of her vocal criticism and unequivocal rejection of the Democrat Party.
But that said, I did not come to these conclusions lightly. I also believe that people can and do change...especially people who believed in something, and are then persecuted and shunned by those who were former "fellow travelers". And in Tulsi Gabbard's interview, she explained how this took place, and how, like Ronald Reagan and David Horowitz, she explained in unequivocal terms that the Democrat Party is the main threat to this country.
I am very curious about the reactions of others who may have seen this interview as well.
Talk is cheap.
Tulsi has never taken a vote on abortion, nor so many other issues, except to vote the liberal position
Ever.
No to Tulsi Gabbard.
I didn’t see that interview but I don’t trust ANYONE that wants to “reform” the electoral college.
But even then I don't see compelling reason to support her particularly for VP. Trump obviously accepted the wrong guy last time; I'd wish to see him make certain that he's making the right choice this time, and not just accepting someone else's choice.
Tulsi looks and sounds great. That is not the problem. But she is still a recalcitrant, reprobate Rat who is phony and wants to have, as so many others in politics do, a lazy-assed person's dream job of sitting on her ass talking in front of worshippers.
One can NOT EVER be allied with the Rats --their nihilism, their communism, their infanticide, their libertinism, their racism, their perversity, their abuse of innocent children, their crypto-satanism, their preternatural aversion to the Almighty, their hatred of America-- and ever be trustworthy AFAIAC. If you stop and think for a minute, you must agree with the above.
Sorry, it is just, in the words of TJ, "self evident".
Trump’s VP will be the presumptive winner of the 2028 presidential election. Patriots who want MAGA to be PERMANENT and not just a night’s wet dream should see Vivek as probably Trump’s only choice as VP to do that.
At this point the way I see it, Vivek needs to be in the front-runner position for the 2028 Presidential election. From what I’ve seen, nobody else on the national stage has shown they’re ready to step up to the plate and so what it takes to recover our Free Constitutional Republic. IMO that is partially because Vivek is not a politician.
If instead Trump puts in some political filler-gap guy or girl in there, then even if they won the 2028 election, they’ll be gone in 2032 like RINO GHWBush was gone in 1992, and sayonara America.