Tulsi Gabbard: Quo Vadis?

After bravely contesting a nomination she knows she cannot win, Tulsi Gabbard has and continues to exhibit a tenacious adherence to achievement of purpose. What is that purpose? I believe it is evident if you only let your eyes see and your ears hear. Listen to what she says. Looks at what she does.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1bVz4nNNnA]

Humble surroundings. Real people. Good food.

What this does is obvious. However, please forgive me if I proceed to explain the meaning. People see what apparently is her home milieu. I've been to Filipino homes for dinner as many of my nurse friends were Filipino. Tulsi is so human. Despite Hindu belief, she is respectful to the presence and perhaps the essence of Jesus, and does not sound pandering or hypocritical.

Getting to know Tulsi at the beginning of her hoped-for (by me) political ascendancy. Get in on almost the ground floor of what will become an extremely powerful force in future American life.

Why? What's the hurry?

The more support and the earlier Tulsi receives it propel the campaign. That's what momentum means: a self-generating growing strength.

One doesn't have to be a Tulsi supporter to hopefully receive some ideas which may not have occurred to you. This essay does not concern any specific Gabbard policy. What I write here is what I perceive of her character and thus her selected path. Mind-reading, perhaps. Arm-chair speculation, possibly.

Tulsi has completed phase 2A in her career. The little that I know of her early life, especially politically (such as how she voted in HI state legislature) limits a deep understanding which such knowledge would provide. As the tree is bent, etc.

Phase 1A: youth, formative years, military

Phase 1B: state legislature

Phase 1C: Congress

Phase 2B and possibly subsequent: interim between Congress and Presidential campaigning with realistic chance of victory.

We are in Phase 2B. Tulsi, as I wrote in another essay, is letting the tainted shroud of Democrat corruption fall off her shoulders without any effort of her own. The Democrat party is eating itself alive. It is all things to all people at once. That is a philosophy incapable of satisfaction.

Omni Democraticorundum in tres partes est (pardon the reference to the opening of Caesar's Gallic Wars, with liberal substitution by me).

The Dems trifurcate and the division will be neither pleasant nor reconcilable. Tribalism will be reborn after Trump crushes whomever in 2020.

Tribe one: urban/techno/überkinden.

Tribe two: leftward bound to a place where no politician has ever ventured. Not socialism. Not Communism. We could call it Fantasy Land, although I fear Disney owns that name.

Tribe three: progressive realists. By using such positive wording, you will correctly suspect my bias as to which Tribe I belong to.

Once again, policy will not be discussed. Only strategy and reality. Can't have good strategy without a good grasp of reality. This is why Establidems are bereft of thematic variability. For the past 3.3 years, they have been singing from a hymn book containing but one song. You know the title. Orange Man Bad. Yeah, that's it. If they don't like that title, we establidems have another song for ya. It's called Orange Man Bad. Like that one, huh? Wazzat, ya didn't like the song the first time. Hey, we thought the song would grown on you.

Them Dems, noses up, can't see the sidewalk. Oops. Stepped in something there, huh? Oh, yeah like the Impeachment.

But I digress: The latter part of Phase 2B is not clear. Tulsi will continue to accept small donor contributions, even after not obtaining the nomination next year. Public appearances will be important but should be low key with little press attention. Press attention is something however that won't be available when most desirable. What else Tulsi will do may be to form a nucleus of like-minded activists, thinkers, and other supporters to promote an agenda for a more liberal, tolerant society.

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thanatokephaloides's picture

Tulsi knows they're her true base.

And if she's reasonably true to us, she'll win -- if not in 2020, than in 2024.

Smile

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

earthling1's picture

is detonating.
Someone is gonna have to clean up the debri and make some kind of use of what is left over. Recycle the trash. Make it green. Bernie is past his best by date.
This is what I have suspected all along. To save the Party, we must completely destroy it.
Even if it means four more years of Trump. By then, climate change will be obvious to even the dullest among us.
Tulsi is angling to be there to clean up the mess.
IMHO

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

Alligator Ed's picture

@earthling1

To save the Party, we must completely destroy it.
Even if it means four more years of Trump. By then, climate change will be obvious to even the dullest among us.
Tulsi is angling to be there to clean up the mess.

The Dems don't need our help in destroying themselves. They are demonstrating what a fine job of it they do naturally.

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Wally's picture

@Alligator Ed

. . . ah, never mind.

Don't be surprised if even Warren will fail to gather the 15% of votes needed in each early primary state to get awarded any delegates.

It's gonna Biden vs Bernie.

Bernie or Dust. Or she who shall not be named in which case even worse (and I don't mean Tulsi).

edit/add: Well, lookee here, hot off the presses as it were:
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/26/can-bernie-sanders-win-2020-ele...

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Alligator Ed's picture

@Wally @Wally

If Sanders’ candidacy continues to be taken seriously, he will eventually be subjected to the scrutiny that Warren and Biden have faced for prolonged stretches. That includes an examination of his electability. “That conversation has never worked well for anyone,” Pfeiffer said.

What a bunch of hypocritical horseshit. Bernie not getting scrutiny? In 2016, when not being derided for this, that or the other, Bernie was always scrutinized. There are only two things voters have learned since the DNC 2016 convention:

1. Bernie had a heart attack
2. Bernie supported H. Rodent Clinton in the general election.

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Wally's picture

@Alligator Ed

. . . and to the much noted "Bernie blackout" up until now this time around.

It's gotten to the point given the polls and the first primary in being held in about a month where TPTB in conjunction with the MSM can no longer afford to turn a blind eye towards Bernie. It's gonna get really nasty.

The most recent tropes on the twitters, probably in response to Brock talking point memos, have been pushing Bernie as an anti-Semite and him purportedly triggering rape survivors. Of course it's horsehit but it's the propagandistic method of the Big Lie.

I'm genuinely curious. How will you react if Tulsi endorses the Dem nominee and it ain't Bernie? Bernie's endorsement of she-who-shall-not-be-named in 2016 seems to have pretty much completely soured him to you. Endorsing Biden better? Or at least acceptable? Not for me. Bernie doing so in 2016 I could understand and forgive. But this is my last go round absent a Bernie miracle.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@Wally She might back Yang--who won't get nominated. But I hope she doesn't do anything more than a neutral statement, somewhat to the effect that "We must defeat Donald Trump", then not campaign otherwise.

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Wally's picture

@Alligator Ed

. . . to campaign in support of their candidacies.

Maybe Biden will accept her support. I've still never been able to figure why she never and probably still won't take any shots at his warmongering and otherwise cruddy record regarding domestic affairs.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@Wally That's what intelligent predators do.

Diablo

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@Alligator Ed @Alligator Ed be unfamiliar with the neutral position. Though I wonder if she would feel comfortable dipping into that well again given how much grief she got the last time.

Of course, if she again puts it in Neutral, and doesn't support the D nominee (anyone but Bloomberg), she will be finished as a Dem pol. She might as well go off and start a Neutral Party.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@wokkamile Her dismissal papers will be submitted to her after she is barred entry into the DNC convention, regardless of how many delegates she may have won.

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Wally's picture

@Alligator Ed

Don't forget that 15% state threshold for eligibility to be awarded delegates.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@Wally Thus my powers of predicting the future have dimmed accordingly. But two things haven't dimmed:

1. It is readily apparent that the DNC won't let Bernie win. They'll rob him of votes in CA (100% probability) and NY (95% probability), etc.

2. The Demonrats will get destroyed in 2020 up and down ballot except in the fiefdoms of Californicate and Ny-no-nah-nah.

What, pray good Sir, do you predict or is that an impossibility at this time?

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Wally's picture

@Alligator Ed

I will be surprised if Tulsi gets so much as one delegate.

More than a few knowledgeable people think he has a very good shot of winning California. I am less optimistic about NYS but I think he will do well enough to get a good number of delegates especially if he does well in the earlier primaries (NYS comes April 28).

I don't feel solidly about making any kind of predictions at this point but given the nature of the Democratic Party, I don't see it as falling into oblivion anytime soon or in our lifetimes.

As far as Bernie goes, I am not optimistic but I still have some hope. I still fervantly believe that his candidacy is the best chance we will have in our lifetimes of bringing about any substantial change -- and if he and his critical mass of supporters can't pull it off this time around, we're all phluckled big time, even alligators, in terms of combating climate change and putting a kabosh on endless wars. I wish you good future luck with Tulsi though. I just don't see it. But I've been wrong on more than one occasion in my life.

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@earthling1
They remade themselves. We would say into Frankenstein, but they remade themselves into a winning electoral combination. The Democrats tried to clone that, starting with Clinton, but fake Republicans couldn't beat real Republicans.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

@earthling1 I am about to be one. Only Tulsi and Yang represent the future. What a team they would make. Tulsi on the foreign policy side and Yang on the domestic side. Team Asia. Only in America.

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gulfgal98's picture

@earthling1 I honestly do believe that she thinks long term and, for whatever reason, her decision not to run for her own congressional seat is a part of her long term plans. Despite her being smeared over and over by the media, Tulsi has the unique ability to effectively expand the electorate by appealing to rational people, regardless of party affiliation.

The establishment is terrified of her message. Otherwise, why would they be attacking her so viciously despite her reported low polling numbers?

While Tulsi is a practicing Hindu, she was raised in a multi faith family with her father being a still practicing Catholic. And she mentioned that they had attended a Baptist church in South Carolina on Christmas Eve. I noticed that her parents were in attendance at the dinner that her brother in law and his mother prepared.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Alligator Ed's picture

@gulfgal98 She will not be campaigning as a Dem this cycle, unless perhaps Bernie gets the nomination. The severance from Congress means de facto severance from the Democrat Party. The stink of said party becomes more and more apparent daily as Shiftless, No-Nads, Nervous Nancy et. al. continue their demeaning and angering stupidity. More Dems are getting turned off by the House sham impeachment daily.

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Cassiodorus's picture

@earthling1 that suggest that the Democratic Party is "detonating"?

It looks to me that the Democrats are settling in for a long period of existence as America's Vichy party. The Democrats are that party that exists so that those Americans who are afraid of Republican policymakers can vote for them so that, when elected, they can find clever ways of giving away power to the Republicans.

As for destroying the Democratic Party, we are on the same page.

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"Forget the lesser evil -- fight for the greater good." - Jill Stein

earthling1's picture

@Cassiodorus
friends and family demexiting even today. Many of my union buddies are still pissed that the union bosses supported Her in 2016.
The teacher strikes last year and before showed the leadership out of step with the rack and file.
Now, in France the union leadership is being ignored entirely by the membership and see them as sell-outs to the labor movment.
Ditto in Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and numerous other countries around the globe.
It's the same all over the world. Working people are seeing their representation being deminished by union leaders.
IMHO

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

Cassiodorus's picture

@earthling1 Those French union bosses, btw, really like that lockstep marching. One of the primary reasons for the current general strike is that the union bosses in France finally gave their okay to the whole thing. Or at least this is what my source, who hails from Montpellier, tells me.

As for your friends and family, Demexiting has one really big advantage -- they will no longer be persecuted for not voting for Democrats. Can they still vote for Bernie Sanders?

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"Forget the lesser evil -- fight for the greater good." - Jill Stein

her chances will be much better in 2024 if Bernie wins in 2020. She will have a base to lead in place rather than in the wilderness. In short, there will still be an America.

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On to Biden since 1973

@doh1304 So maybe not should he win and hangs on for all four. (Two big hypotheticals). And unless he picks her for VP, she will still be in the wilderness in 2024.

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Situational Lefty's picture

If she pisses off those people, she must be doing something right!

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"The enemy is anybody who is going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on." Yossarian