U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ campaign aides say they’re looking to replace current Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz with Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, Politico reported Tuesday.
Gabbard, the previous vice-chair of the committee, resigned from the position back in February in order to campaign for Sanders. Now Sanders appears interested in rewarding that loyalty, despite a record that upon closer examination is anything but progressive.
Hailing from Maui, Hawaii, arguably the most progressive county in the United States, Tulsi is the daughter of Mike Gabbard, a Hawaii state senator and a former Republican who was mired in controversies in the 1990s for his anti-gay positions and policies.
It would appear the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. The congresswoman, while now echoing the Democratic Party’s line on equality, sounded a different tone as a state lawmaker herself, referring to her father's critics as “homosexual extremist supporters.”
Her reactionary politics are manifested in more than just old comments. Last year she voted to bar war refugees from entering the United States at the same time she voiced support for the dictators and airstrikes that helped create them, breaking with her fellow Democrats to join the most far-right xenophobes in Congress.
That record is why author and Democratic Party activist Shay Chan Hodges has decided to run against Gabbard this year. Hodges argues that Gabbard simply isn’t progressive enough to represent Maui. Here are five reasons why she’s spot on.
1. A Friend of the Far Right and a Darling of Fox News
Miriam Adelson is the wife of billionaire Trump supporter Sheldon Adelson. | Photo: Twitter / @RabbiShmuley
Gabbard has worked with many influential Republicans, the most notable being Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire casino magnate who has offered Donald Trump millions of dollars for his campaign, and backed legislation banning online gambling that directly supported his business interests. Not only does Adelson fund union-busting campaigns, but he spent more than US$150 million on Mitt Romney and other Republican candidates in the 2012 election.
Often the only Democrat at Republican functions and activities, she’s received positive coverage for her views on Fox News, the National Review and other conservative media outlets.
2. She Espouses Islamophobic Rhetoric
While many Democrats, including Bernie Sanders, have rejected the term “radical Islam” and the idea that the the U.S. is at war with a world religion, Gabbard has wholeheartedly embraced the term and the line of thinking behind its use. In fact, she has criticized U.S. President Barack Obama for saying that “poverty, lack of access to jobs, lack of access to education” is contributing to radicalization.
“They are not fueled by materialistic motivation, it's actually a theological, this radical Islamic ideology,” she has said.
In 2014, Gabbard also called for visa waivers to be curtailed from European countries that tend to have “Islamic extremist” populations, specifically referring to Britain, Germany and France.
3. She Wants to Bomb Syria and Ban Refugees
In November 2015, Gabbard voted, along with 46 Democrats and 242 Republicans, to pass HR 4038, also known as the American SAFE Act of 2015. The bill effectively blocked the resettlement of Syrians in the United States, with the White House complaining that it "would unacceptably hamper our efforts to assist some of the most vulnerable people in the world."
A veteran of the Iraq war who opposes "regime change," Gabbard is a reliable advocate of regime preservation — that is, backing dictators with U.S. money and arms. She is also a vehement supporter of bombing Syria, arguing the United States — which has been carrying out airstrikes against the Islamic State group, the al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra and others in Syria since Sept. 2014 — hasn't been bombing the country enough.
To date, U.S. airstrikes in Syria have reportedly killed hundreds of civilians.
4. She’s Friendly with Dictators and Other Scumbags
Gabbard with Modi, left, and Gabbard meeting with Sisi, right. | Photo: Twitter / @IWPCHI and Tulsi Gabbard
Gabbard, who is of the Hindu faith, has aligned herself closely with the Hindu nationalist Indian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The party’s leader and current prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, as well as the party itself – which subscribes to a reactionary, ethnocentric religious fundamentalist ideology known as Hindutva – both have a history of condoning hatred and violence against India's Muslim minority. Modi himself has been implicated in the Gujarat riots of 2002, which saw the killings of several hundred Muslims.
In an interview with Quartz India, she praised Modi’s policies on defense, bilateral trade and renewable energy, as well as his leadership skills.
According to the Alternet, federal election commission documents have shown Gabbard received thousands of dollars from BJP supporters during her campaign for Congress.
Gabbard also visited Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in November 2015. Sisi, who came to power by overthrowing Egypt's first democratically elected president, has ordered mass extrajudicial killings and overseen the detention and torture of hundreds of pro-democracy protesters, a thousand of whom were killed in a span of 48 hours after he seized power in 2013.
5. She’s an Ardent Supporter of Israeli Aggression
As the keynote speaker at a conference hosted by Christians United for Israel — a fundamentalist group that sees Israel playing a major role in the apocalypse—she has repeatedly sided with the Zionist state over the Palestinians and others it kills.
When Gabbard appeared on CNN’s “Situation Room” and was asked to speak on the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal — which she opposed — the congresswoman said, “Put yourself in Israel’s shoes.... if you put yourself in their shoes and understand …. where the Israeli people are coming from and their deep concern about Iran’s continued development of a nuclear weapon and what they want to do with that.”
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed up to the U.S. Congress to speak against the Iran deal before a mostly Republican audience, 30 Democratic members of Congress publicly boycotted the speech. Gabbard was not one of them.
When asked about her decision not to boycott the speech, Gabbard — who supports the roughly US$3 billion a year in military aid the U.S. sends to the Netanyahyu government — said this of the relationship between the U.S. and Israel, as published in Breitbart: “Ultimately, this friendship and partnership will continue, and to the benefit of both of our countries.”
