2020: A Vision of the Future: Tulsi Gabbard

By Gaurav Varma

Regular Witherly Heights contributor and political enthusiast Gaurav Varma profiles the Democratic candidates who have announced their candidacy for President of the United States in the 2020 election cycle.

Tulsi Gabbard, the congressperson from Hawaii’s 2nd District, has recently announced her candidacy for the presidency in the 2020 Democratic primary. Gabbard is an Iraq War veteran and has been running a foreign policy-centric campaign. She is known for stepping down from her position as Democratic National Committee vice chair in 2016 in order to endorse Bernie Sanders. She has one of the most mixed records of any candidate in the Democratic field, one that touches gay rights, the Trump administration, and overwhelmingly foreign policy.

On economic issues, Gabbard is a standard progressive populist. She was against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, has voiced support for reinstating Glass-Steagall, calls for a higher minimum wage, and wants to implement a universal healthcare system.

But what sets the 37-year-old congressperson apart from her opponents is her focus on foreign policy, specifically her anti-interventionist stance on the United States’ many wars in the Middle East and its current attempts to overthrow Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela: “There is more suffering and more loss of life and more destruction as a result of these wars which does not serve the people in these countries nor does it serve our interests and our security.”

However, Gabbard’s relationship with foreign policy is far more complicated than her campaign messaging would suggest. In January, 2017 she visited Bashar al-Assad in Syria without telling party leadership. She has also met with Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Furthermore, she has praised him saying he “has shown great courage and leadership in taking on this extreme Islamist ideology.” El-Sisi has imprisoned dissidents, detained journalists, tried civilians in military courts, persecuted members of the LGBT community, and tortured people.

Furthermore, in 2014, Gabbard equivocated on the results of a CIA report on the effectiveness of the practice. The report showed that the United States’ implementation of torture was cruel and barbaric and was not effective in yielding useful intelligence. Nevertheless, Gabbard stated in an interview that the report did not offer conclusive findings on the effectiveness of torture and that she believed that torture should remain in use.

In the realm of diplomacy, even though she has expressed dove-like sentiments regarding the Middle East, Gabbard was originally skeptical of President Obama’s nuclear development deal with Iran. She did end up voting for the agreement and has criticized President Trump for pulling out of it, but her original position raises questions about her judgement.

Gabbard’s ties with Steve Bannon and the Trump Administration is also a major criticism of her. In 2015, she voted to make it exceedingly difficult for refugees from Iraq and Syria to find a home in America. On the other hand, she introduced a resolution making it easier for Christian refugees from the same regions to do the same. These actions helped make her one of Steve Bannon’s favorite congresspeople. He even considered getting her a job in President Trump’s administration. That did not end up happening, but when Bannon himself joined the administration, Gabbard did not join 169 of her colleagues in signing a letter protesting his new position.

Finally, one of the darkest parts of Tulsi Gabbard’s record is actually not in foreign policy. It is in the field of gay rights. Gabbard and her family were staunch anti-gay activists in the past. Her father founded a group that supported gay conversion therapy, and she was quoted on her mother’s run for board of education as saying: “This war of deception and hatred against my mom is being waged by homosexual activists because they know, that if elected, she will not allow them to force their values down the throats of the children in our schools.”

Since then she has apologized for her past views, and her voting record is strongly pro-gay.

Tulsi Gabbard’s views on economic issues and international regime-change are in line with the future of the Democratic Party and if she changes course on some of her praise for authoritarian leaders and her support for torture, she will will likely have a bright future in the party. However, she is young, and right now there are so many questions about her record and true beliefs that she should wait a while before seeking the highest office in the government.

[Sources: youtube.com, cnn.com]