And now Tulsi climbs onboard
She explains here why she got on the Trump train:
I was a Democrat for over 20 years. Today, I endorsed Donald Trump for President. WATCH to hear why: pic.twitter.com/lwA8FYFx8h
— Tulsi Gabbard ? (@TulsiGabbard) August 26, 2024
I thought this deserved its own thread.
In addition, I note that the RFK Jr. endorsement and this from Gabbard didn’t just happen totally organically. Trump was reaching out to these people, which I think was smart. I’m going to assume that, as the author of The Art of the Deal, he promised both of them some kind of future role. But one has to get elected in order to fulfill such promises, and I believe they both will help any chances Trump has of winning. What’s more, as RFK Jr. said, they actually do have some things on which they agree. The first of those things is the danger of a Harris presidency that would enable Democrats to further institutionalize and solidify the power of the left, perhaps for many generations to come.
I have a high regard for Tulsi. Hope she goes to the CIA, FBI or Homeland Security.
She realizes our First Amendment rights are in mortal danger.
Worrying about what Gabbard or RFK Jr might do in a Trump administration, given that they’re both on the left, is probably premature. Assuming Trump gets elected, the bureaucracy is not going to obey any of them.
I hope their support helps with the election.
Preference cascade, ho!
Change is bustin’ out all over! The feeling is getting so intense.
The momentum is clear.
They may prefer to lead something like a bipartisan commission to fix a favorite priority they share with 47 rather than take a job that takes Senate confirmation. Normally Presidential commissions and advisory boards meet sparingly, issue meaningless reports and accomplish little more than padding their resumes. If 47 were to populate these commissions/boards with bipartisan action-oriented teams with congressional support they could make big dents in the structure and operation of the bureaucratic state, but that’s probably too much to hope for…
The question for them is whether they want a title or want to get something done.
Recall that Tulsi is already helping Trump’s debate prep against Harris.
Good choice. Tulsi Gabbard landed significant blows against Harris during the Democrat primary debates in 2019.
Gabbard accused Harris, as California’s Attorney General, of perpetuating policies that were harmful to African Americans, particularly in the context of the criminal justice system.
Gabbard accused Harris of putting over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughing about it when asked if she had ever smoked marijuana.
Gabbard also pointed out that Harris had blocked evidence that could have exonerated a man on death row until the courts forced her to do so.
Additionally, Gabbard criticized Harris for keeping people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California.
After this exchange, Harris experienced a drop in the polls.
Tulsi’s announcement absolutely does deserve its own thread. The root causes of RFK’s and Gabbard’s respective decisions are probably slightly different, though obviously broadly shared. But besides this, their respective priorities are also a little bit orthogonal, which is not the same as contradictory.
Also interesting is the succession of these endorsements or near-endorsements from these three figures – Trump, RFK Jr., and Gabbard – for whom the fight has lately taken on a definite personal dimension, in a manner unique to each.
(P. S.: I also enjoyed the presence of the Iowa flag just over her shoulder, but maybe that’s just me.)
(P. P. S.: Boy, put her and Walz in the same room for ten minutes… they’d probably have to institutionalize the poor man after she got done with him.)
Notice too the choreography.
I assume RFK’s and Gabbard’s moves were already in place before the DNC. So they let the DNC play out and allowed the mild rise in Harris’s polls.
Then the day after the DNC, BAM!, RFK dropped his endorsement of Trump, replacing Harris’s DNC coronation story.
Then a few days later, after the RFK story subsides a bit, BAM!, Gabbard drops her endorsement.
Critics of Trump go on how Trump is wasting these critical days in the short Trump-Harris campaign. I’m sure one may kibitz on some of his choices, but this RFK-Gabbard one-two punch was calculated to puncture Harris’s DNC balloon, and I’d say it has done so effectively.
Now this weekend is Labor Day and it is after Labor Day, according to political wisdom, that voters start to get serious about the election.
Will they be thinking about Kamala at the DNC? Or the RFK-Gabbard right-cross/left hook combo?
It takes guts for these dems to support Trump. Obviously, Trump will continue to be inundated with legal distractions by the democrat deep state. And, he only has four years to turn things around. Hopefully, this time he will get decent people in positions of power that can hold on and continue making USA more realistic again instead of the cartoon we have become.
On the debate prep story, I’m uncertain Tulsi knows how to pose as a cackling ditz, when miming Kamala would require precisely such a turn.
That dead cat bounce Kamala got from the convention is well & truly over now with this sort of stuff happening.
I was thinking along huxley’s lines about a “preference cascade,” although Musk, RFK Jr, & Tulsi…well 3 does not yet a cascade make…but I do like the trajectory.
…Or in more technical terms, the intersection of the Anti-Bullsheiss Coalition and the Wishful-Thinking Foundation…
(Wistful-Thinking Foundation?)
Musk, RFK Jr, & Tulsi
John+Guilfoyle:
There’s the saying, things come in threes…
The Democrats dumped Musk, RFK Jr., and Gabbard long ago for the various failures, in their view, of these three to toe the Party’s ideological line. There was no place else to go, and they all agree that Trump is best able to move the country in the right direction, even if they disagree with some of his policies. By endorsing him they retain a seat at the table.
“………..It takes guts for these dems to support Trump….”
No, not really.
The democrat party had already given RFK and Tulsi Gabbard the death penalty, which revealed to these two – assuming they didn’t already know this, which is really really hard to believe – that “their” party would do anything and everything, legal or illegal, to attain absolute power and to destroy them; the demokrat party showed all their cards when dealing with these two.
Just think of Hitler’s order to murder his ideological brethren (and threat to his power) Ernst Rohm or Stalin’s order to murder his fellow commie, the SOB, Trotsky.
Totalitarian minds think alike; the ends justifies the means.
Let’s hope that RFK and Tulsi’s endorsement will help Trump prevail in November.
It’s safe to say that from this point forward, RFK and Tulsi will be eradicated, removed, made to disappear , from any “reporting” of the media.
So unless voters seek out other sources of information outside the MSM, many (most?) will have no clue that Tulsi and RFK are supporting Trump.
Life on Earth is a *LOT* like Life in a Prison…
Let people or nations make threats against you – one day these same people or nations are going to gain enough courage (or kindred help) to act on those threats. Best to shut down any threat immediately, IMHO.
Guess any hope for America’s Genghis Khan to run for President is wishful thinking and wasted effort.
I like Tulsi Gabbard, but it’s another sign of America’s continuing shift leftward. Still, the Republican Party needs some kind of change at this time—even if it’s a tad to the left.
Meanwhile, Kindred Spirits Russia and Iran grow closer, bolder, and are left untouched…
It’s interesting to me that there hasn’t been all that much discussion of Tulsi and RFK Jr.’s position on Ukraine, which is an anathema to many around here. I’m not quite as strident on the issue as RFK Jr., but I’m probably more skeptical of US policy towards Ukraine over the past twenty years, including during this war. Oddly, I suspect I’m right about where Trump is on the issue.
Anyway, expand the coalition? Yes please. Credit to Trump for that. If he can win and defeat the left, “not left” is good enough for me. At least not the American left of the 21st century.
I’m still concerned about winning the election. Just having Trump as the nominee kisses away a large chunk of potentially persuadable voters. Although, to the extent we’re talking about new endorsements, we’re not talking about whatever stream-of-consciousness statements have come out of Trump’s mouth recently, so that’s a win. If they could only have one of these endorsements lined up every week between now and November.
A concern – I doubt that RFK Jr. would be even remotely effective against the executive agencies. Tulsi could be effective, but she would need significant support. Any Trump administration appointee would need significant support to avoid being eaten alive. Flynn was a fairly sophisticated operator, and they got him.
Further expounding on Ukraine – There have to be some gettable anti-war votes out there for the right. The left’s “evolution” on war and peace over Ukraine was so sudden and so head-snapping that there must be at least a portion of their base who, like RFK Jr. and Tulsi, are at least willing to consider jumping ship.
Fehrenbach, in “This Kind of War”, a bang-up history of the Korean War with context and surrounding histories, makes the case that you can lose pawns because they’re not worth, individually, fighting for.
But when it’s checkmate, you surrender or you kick over the board–go nuke.
Hence, the warmer places in the Cold War were designed to keep the Sovs from thinking that, now, now we have things such that we can win. Don’t have to beat them, just keep them from thinking they have a shot.
The more easterly free countries in Europe seem to think they’d be as much a threat to Russia as Ukraine was, once Putin gets Ukraine settled.
Point is, Ukraine is not necessarily a single item unrelaed to other or future issues.
The anti-fascist coalition forms. Who will be next to join? I’m curious to see how Trump manages the divergent interests if elected, parliamentary government comes to the U.S.
The Democratic Party has become an anti-democratic force for tyranny.