Tulsi Gabbard For VP?

Donald Trump either has a short list or a long one, depending on the media source, in his search for a running mate. Either way, he could do a lot worse than Tulsi Gabbard. At least she knows, unlike many establishment Republicans, just how malicious Democrats are, since she used to be one and saw the depravity up close.

Maybe Trump will choose Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, or New York Rep. Elise Stefanik. He might turn to Ben Carson, a Cabinet official in his previous administration, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, or South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem. All would be acceptable, as would other Republicans not named.

It’s possible, however, the best candidate isn’t even a member of the party.

Gabbard was for eight years a Democrat representing Hawaii’s second congressional district in the U.S. House. She ran for the White House in 2020 as a Democrat, but has since left the party, declaring her independence in October 2022.

The Samoan-American, a U.S. Army Reserve lieutenant colonel and decorated combat veteran, showed her plucky streak, and her inclination to think independently, while speaking in December at Turning Point USA’s Americafest. She cautioned that “the future of our country is at risk.” Her former party, she said, in language similar to that she used when she announced she was leaving the Democrats’ fold, is “under the complete control of an elitist cabal of war mongers who are driven by cowardly wokeness.”

Never afraid to deviate from the left’s rigid orthodoxy, Gabbard went against the grain of her party in 2019 while still in Congress, warning that impeaching President Donald Trump would be “terribly divisive” for the country. 

Since her time in the swamp, she sees “people who have no respect for the rule of law,” who are actively undermining “it for their own political gain, and willing to do anything. We should not be surprised that they declare new national emergencies that allow (them) to grab onto more power.”

There’s a “Democrat elite” and a “permanent Washington establishment,” she says, a “war machine made up of both Democrats and Republicans who are abusing their power, undermining our God given rights and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution with one goal and objective in mind: protecting their power at any cost.”

Gabbard found out early that Washington Democrats have no interest in restrictions on government limits and the traditions of liberty. As a freshman lawmaker she asked why many Democrats weren’t present for the reading of the Constitution into the Congressional Record, which she called “a great tradition,” begun in 2011 after the Tea Party revolt. She learned that some in her party refuse to participate because it’s “a right-wing Republican thing.”

She continued:

I was not only shocked but pretty disheartened and saddened by that response. But now, as we look at their actions year after year and escalating, especially over these last few years, what they said is actually more true. They don’t care about the Constitution.

They don’t care about the vision that our founders had for this country. They are so blinded by their hunger, this insatiable hunger for power, that they are putting their selfish interests above everything else and they are launching this all-out assault on our God-given rights and freedoms.

The 42-year-old pointed out that her former party is at perpetual war with First and Second Amendment rights, and the current administration is focused on “discriminating against people of faith, especially Christians, arresting peaceful pro-life protesters.” More recently, at last month’s Conservative Political Action Conference, she declared “our democracy is under attack,” and identified “the perpetrators” to be “those who in the name of saving our democracy are destroying it.”

Though we wish she had pointed out that we’re a republic, and not given in to the left’s butchery of political language, we won’t be too critical since it’s obvious she’s bolder than even some Republicans where it counts.

Gabbard is, of course, not perfect. She once endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders for president, the crank from Vermont, and still holds some positions on the left. Yet she has moved right since breaking with her party. But has she gone far enough to be a running mate that Republicans voters would support? A robust vetting would help determine that.

In the meantime, we should recall that Ronald Reagan was once a Democrat, too.

— Written by the I&I Editorial Board