One of the odder phenomena of the 2024 presidential election is a certain 2020 Democratic candidate who has strayed very far since then. I took a look at her options at New York:
A month ago, when ex-Democratic congresswoman and 2020 presidential wannabe Tulsi Gabbard showed up at a Mar-a-Lago event, I wrote about the logic that could make her a highly unconventional but not entirely implausible 2024 running mate for Donald Trump. Once a major backer of Bernie Sanders, Gabbard’s trajectory toward MAGA-land has been steady since she left the Democratic Party in the fall of 2022, a main course she served up with a side dish of jarring candidate endorsements (e.g., of J.D. Vance). Even when she was still a Democrat running for president, though, her orientation was more MAGA-adjacent than you might expect, as Geoffrey Skelley explained in 2019:
“Gabbard’s supporters … are more likely to have backed President Trump in 2016, hold conservative views or identify as Republican compared to voters backing the other candidates. …
“In fact, Gabbard has become a bit of a conservative media darling in the primary, with conservative commentators like Ann Coulter and pro-Trump social media personalities like Mike Cernovich complimenting her for her foreign policy views. In a primary in which some 2020 Democratic contenders have boycotted Fox News, Gabbard has regularly appeared on the network. Just last week, Gabbard even did an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, a far-right political outlet. She’s also made appeals outside the political mainstream by going on The Joe Rogan Experience — one of the most popular podcasts in the country and a favored outlet for members of the Intellectual Dark Web, whose purveyors don’t fit neatly into political camps but generally criticize concepts such as political correctness and identity politics.”
So her parting blast at Democrats as controlled by an “elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness” didn’t come out of nowhere.
But much as Gabbard might be an outside-the-box running mate for the 45th president, it does seem there is another 2024 presidential candidate whose extreme hostility to mainstream institutions and difficult-to-categorize views might make him a better match for her: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And sure enough, according to NBC News, the wiggy anti-vaxxer is interested in Gabbard:
“The four-term former member of Congress from Hawaii is now getting consideration for both former President Donald Trump’s and independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s tickets, two sources familiar with the candidates’ deliberations told NBC News.”
The prospect of choosing between these two politicians appears to have left Gabbard feeling she’s in the catbird seat:
“As one source said, Gabbard would be more likely to seriously consider running as Kennedy’s vice presidential nominee had she not been swept up by the possibility of serving with Trump. This person said Gabbard ‘was enticed’ by the chance of serving on Kennedy’s ticket but is now focused on the possibility that Trump will select her.
“’My understanding is that Tulsi is convinced that Trump is going to pick her,’ this person said. ‘Had that not been the case, she probably would have gone with Kennedy.’”
Since Kennedy has scheduled a running-mate reveal for March 26 in Oakland, we’ll know soon enough whether he chose Gabbard and Gabbard chose him. Others rumored to be on his short list include New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, and California entrepreneur and major RFK Jr. donor Nicole Shanahan.
As NBC notes, it’s more than a bit unusual for people to be considered for multiple presidential tickets:
“[I]t’s exceedingly rare for a politician to attract interest from more than one presidential ticket or party. (Ahead of the 1952 election, Democrats and Republicans led dueling efforts to draft another politically ambiguous veteran, Dwight Eisenhower, the former supreme Allied commander in Europe during World War II, for the presidential race.)”
It’s hard to say what Tulsi Gabbard would think of this comparison. After all, Ike was a bit of a warmonger.
Because Democratic social engineering is race and gender based, rather than class based, the Democratic Party has surrendered the working class white male vote to the Republicans. The Immigration Reform billed failed because too many whites feel they have been socially engineered to death, and they know just whom to blame. The Party has to think more in class terms.
“try to imagine saying “the current debate in the Republican party is fundamentally neither anti-immigrant or nativist” with an absolutely straight face to someone whose opinion you respect without feeling an urge to either snort, chuckle or grin.”
OK Joe! You win on that one!
But I would suggest its much more than “a significant number” the vast majotity oppose this. Yes there are yahoo’s, but the vast majority are just American’s that oppose illegal immigration on legal, moral, economic, social grounds. Not because of race, not nativists nor any other tags from the tired ethnic lobby.
I guess I’m trying to say at present I believe we are on the wrong side of this question and the leadership is possibly sinking our ship.
It is true that there are a significant number of Americans who oppose illegal immigration but who are neither racist or against legal immigration. Speaking carefully to avoid needlessly antagonizing this group is a reasonable suggestion.
On the other hand, the idea that the current debate in the Republican primaries is fundamentally not “anti-immigrant” nor “nativist” is, to put it mildly, somewhat more of a stretch. Use the laugh test – try to imagine saying “the current debate in the Republican party is fundamentally neither anti-immigrant or nativist” with an absolutely straight face to someone whose opinion you respect without feeling an urge to either snort, chuckle or grin.
“There is no doubt that Romney and the rest of the Republican field will find an audience for anti-immigration rhetoric in the primaries.”
“Waldman predicts that the Republicans’ nativist rhetoric”
Opposing illegal immigration does not make you anti-immigrant nor does opposing illegal immigration make you a racist.
Calling people racists and using dishonest language to attack them will not serve us well.
Most Hispanics that are US citizens oppose illegal immigration, most democrats and independents oppose it. Last count over 74% of all US citizens opposed it.
Could it be that this type of racist pandering….advocating illegal immigration, encouraging breaking the law may cost us votes?
Courting openly racist organizations like LaRaza, throwing around charges of racism, xenophobia, nativsm when someone opposes illegal immigration is a loser for the candidate, the party and America.
We can’t depend on Republican rasicm as our organizing tool. The folks over at the Coronado Project have it right in their latest memo when they say that getting the Latino vote for the long-term will take actual organizing and structures that are currently lacking in the democratic party.