What is the left’s problem with Tulsi Gabbard?The Hawaiian congresswoman has few friends on her side of the aisle
Michael Tracey
November 24, 2018
Few contemporary American political figures generate such unique disdain as Tulsi Gabbard, the Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii. The disdain is not unique for its tenacity – plenty of figures are on the receiving end of bitter criticism – but for its political composition. Gabbard straddles an ideological fissure that spans the Democratic and Republican party coalitions in ways that are difficult to pin down. Despite being
an avowed progressive on policy issues and a frequent critic of President Trump, her most committed antagonists appear on the left.
The consternation perhaps began in earnest during the 2016 presidential cycle, when she resigned as a Vice Chair from the Democratic National Committee to
endorse Bernie Sanders – and in so doing cast stark aspersion on Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy judgment. This created seeds of doubt among liberals that she was a double agent of sorts, operating within the Democratic party for the stealth purpose of undermining its cohesion and causing problems. ...
Trump supporters sometimes profess that Gabbard is one of the few Democrats they find palatable, probably because she seems to avoid the Culture War brawling that so often comes across as tedious and shrill when filtered through the contemporary left-wing moralizing lingo. All that said,
her positions are still almost entirely progressive by any normal measure (with a few possible exceptions that her liberal antagonists frequently highlight). This creates an unusual paradox in her public perception.
Seeming palatable to Trump supporters automatically evokes suspicion among liberals as evidence of some lurking moral turpitude.
Her visit to Bashar al-Assad in January 2017, along with former Democratic Congressman and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, was the final straw for enemies whose antipathy toward her had been simmering and craved an attack-line to coalesce around. ...
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