A local perspective...
It is easy to dismiss Hawaii’s former congressional Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as a
shape-shifter who keeps changing her political views to get ahead.
But if Gabbard has been motivated for decades by self-interest, why hasn’t
she gained more traction in any political party? Why does she continue to
stumble one step behind the zeitgeist? Why does she usually end up on the
fringes?
With the help of a Pidgin dictionary, I would like to offer a more charitable
view of Gabbard, not as a gadfly but rather as a person searching for a
political home to give her the clout and credibility she craves.
In Pidgin, also known as Hawaii Creole English, nothing is gained from
“talking stink,” especially when Gabbard “stay trying” — meaning trying to
get ahead — but in her case, often hitting dead ends instead of home runs.
She clearly is looking for more clout than her recent appearances as a
contributor on Fox News and a podcaster headlining “The Tulsi Gabbard
Show.”
Fellow Civil Beat columnist Neal Milner suggested this alternative view to me
in a phone conversation this week.
I agree with Neal that viewing Tulsi as on a quest is an interesting way to
make sense of why she has embraced but then abandoned so many
divergent political views. She is politically homeless yet looking for a hearth.
Local people in Hawaii might say, “She nevah find her ikigai.” Ikigai is a
Japanese word, meaning a life doing what you love that also helps others,
finding a satisfying job that makes you want to get up in the morning.
“Ass why hard!“ as they say in Pidgin, meaning it isnʻt easy. A person who
stay trying to make it on the big stage must be prepared for many setbacks.
Milner says Gabbard has been on a rocky road for a long time mainly
because of her inability to form alliances beyond her relatively small base of
dedicated followers.
If you want to be a somebody as in Pidgin “Eh, you somebody,” you need
allies.
And seeking support in the snake pit of former President Donald Trumpʻs
election campaign may be one of the riskiest moves Gabbard has made yet
on her search for a home.
Trump helps himself, not others. He is famous for throwing his sycophants
under the bus if they fail to walk in lockstep with his whims. Gabbard with
her iconoclastic temperament might sooner or later provoke his rage.
That is unless she has given up and lost her independent spark. Watching
her interviews on Fox News in recent years makes me sad.
Often, she seems to be reading off a list of MAGA talking points rather than
expressing her own beliefs. But thatʻs her job, especially now as a Trump
surrogate.
Endorsing Trump
Gabbard on Aug. 26 announced her endorsement for Trump in Detroit at a
gathering of the National Guard Association of the United States to
commemorate the anniversary of the 2021 suicide bombing that killed 13
Americans during the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Earlier that day, Gabbard accompanied Trump on his heavily criticized visit
to lay wreaths at Arlington National Cemetery for three troops killed in the
withdrawal. A campaign photographer took unauthorized photos in a
sensitive part of the cemetery — during which the Army says Trumpʻs group
physically pushed aside a cemetery employee who was trying to stop the
filming.
Trump guys “make ass big time!” and they never apologized. In Pidgin,
“They stay no mo shame.”
The Army issued the Trump campaign a rare public reprimand for violating
the cemetery rules that prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds.
Gabbard, a National Guard veteran who served in Iraq, says Trump respects
the military and would make a great commander in chief. She may have
forgotten the many times he has offended fellow war veterans.
A day after receiving her endorsement, Trump announced that Gabbard was
joining his campaign as an honorary co-chair of his transition team along
with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
That’s the same outlier Kennedy who has talked about a parasitic worm
eating part of his brain and how he left a dead bear in New York’s Central
Park as a joke. And his daughter Kick Kennedy said he once chainsawed off
the head of a dead whale and drove the head stapped to the top of the
family minivan home to Mt. Kisco, New York. In Pidgin, thatʻs “uji” super uji
meaning, ahhh, creepy, strange, uji.
Suffice to say Kennedy’s behavior is “hammajang,” meaning all messed up
and move on. This column is not about him.
Political Path
Back to Gabbard, whose father is state Sen. Mike Gabbard. Since she was a
child educated in a Hare Krishna offshoot called The Science of Identity
Foundation, her life has taken a path of many twists and turns.
She supported her dad’s early campaign to ban same-sex marriages.
However, when she successfully ran as a Democrat for a state House seat
she changed course to become supportive of gay rights.
She went on to become a member of the nonpartisan Honolulu City Council
and deployed with the Hawaii Army National Guard to Iraq and Kuwait before
heading to Washington as a representative for Hawaiiʻs 2nd Congressional
District.
As a rising star in the Democrat Party, she began to alienate party leaders
when she criticized then-President Barack Obamaʻs Syria policy and his
other foreign policy initiatives.
In 2016, she left her position as vice chairman of the Democratic National
Committee to help self-proclaimed Democratic socialist Bernie Sanders in
his presidential bid.
She said she backed Sanders because she believed as commander in chief
he would keep the U.S. out of “interventionist wars of regime change.”
Then Gabbard ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential
nomination in 2020 before leaving the Democratic Party in 2022,
denouncing it as “an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly
wokeness.”
She declared herself an independent but quickly hit the road to campaign
for ultra-conservative election deniers such as Arizona Republican
gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.
Now she has come full circle to sign on as a true-blue MAGA supporter.
This is an abrupt turn from her time as a Democratic congresswoman when
she once called Trump “corrupt” and “unfit to serve our country as
president.”
If Trump loses, Gabbard may have closed yet another door behind her. Even
if he wins, with his mercurial unpredictable mood swings, there is no
guarantee he will offer the political home she seeks.
She will be forced, as they say in Pidgin to “suck wind.”
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