Tulsi Gabbard quits Democratic party, attacking ‘elitist cabal of warmongers’

Erum Salam 

The former congresswoman and 2020 presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard has announced her departure from the Democratic party, calling it an “elitist cabal of warmongers”.

Photograph: Octavio Jones/Reuters

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In a video announcement posted to Twitter, she said: “I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers who are driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue and stoking anti-white racism.”

In 2012, Gabbard became the first Samoan-American voting member and Hindu elected to Congress, but her views have often sat uncomfortably with the Democratic party. In 2016, the then congresswoman from Hawaii announced she was leaving the Democratic National Committee to endorse Bernie Sanders for president.

Her attitudes on foreign policy, meanwhile, have often favored authoritarian figures disavowed by the Democrats. In 2013, Gabbard was criticized for voting against a bipartisan House resolution condemning anti-Muslim violence in the state of Gujarat. The 2002 Gujarat riots left more than 1,000 dead, a majority of whom were Muslim, and were widely attributed to Indian PM Narendra Modi’s stoking of sectarian fires.

Gabbard said there was “a lot of misinformation” surrounding the violence and has spoken highly of Modi. She met with him on his visit to the US and even spoke at a fundraising event for his rightwing Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) in 2014.

In a debate during the 2020 presidential race, Gabbard caught flak from then candidate Kamala Harris for not calling Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad a “war criminal”, after she attacked Harris on her record as a California prosecutor. A US army veteran, Gabbard secretly visited Syria in 2017 and met Assad on what she called a “fact-finding mission”. She expressed skepticism about the atrocities carried out under Assad’s leadership.

The late Republican senator John McCain said Gabbard’s trip “kind of legitimizes a guy who butchered 400,000 of his own people”.

Gabbard made the claims about the Democratic party during the debut of her new YouTube show The Tulsi Gabbard Show, the first episode of which was uploaded on Tuesday.

In August she filled in for the far-right Fox News talk show host Tucker Carlson.

"War Pigs"

 

Album: Paranoid Song: "War Pigs" ~ LYRICS ~ Generals gathered in their masses Just like witches at black masses Evil minds that plot destruction Sorcerers of death's construction In the fields the bodies burning As the war machine keeps turning Death and hatred to mankind Poisoning their brainwashed minds Oh lord yeah! Politicians hide themselves away They only started the war Why should they go out to fight? They leave that role to the poor Time will tell on their power minds Making war just for fun Treating people just like pawns in chess Wait 'til their judgement day comes Yeah! Now in darkness world stops turning Ashes where the bodies burning No more war pigs at the power Hand of God has struck the hour Day of judgement, God is calling On their knees the war pig's crawling Begging mercy for their sins Satan laughing spreads his wings oh lord yeah!