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Barack Obama effectively transformed the Democratic Party. America’s first black president rendered mute the reform-minded approach of Martin Luther King for ameliorating the country’s imperfections, and instead applied, on a nation level, the toxicity of Saul Alinsky’s community organization radical scheme. The Democratic Party was his vehicle for power.
Consequently, the party went from one with ideological ranges between center-left and social democratic tendencies, to one led by radical elements, sponsoring far-left proposals. Neo-Marxists, Islamists, and Fabian Socialists, all embracing aspects of classical Marxism’s conflict theory, today steward the party Andrew Jackson founded. A discordant voice within this choir of leftism is the member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Hawaii’s 2nd district, Tulsi Gabbard.
The four-term House member and former 2020 presidential candidate for the Democratic Party is a practicing Hindu, of Asian, Polynesian, and Caucasian descent who served two tours of military duty in the Middle East, and who continues to serve as a Major in the Army National Guard and sits on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Financial Services Committee. Although Gabbard has announced that she will not be seeking reelection, the American Samoan-born legislator has made a moderating imprint in Washington politics, shuffling the ranks of the Democratic Party on numerous fronts.
Gabbard, a moderate
Recently, Gabbard proposed two pieces of pro-life legislation. One of them is H.R. 8939 which seeks to protect pain-capable unborn children and aims to restrict abortion after 20 weeks gestation.
The second, H.R. 8923, attempts to ensure that a health care practitioner exercises the appropriate degree of medical attention in the case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion. These pro-life positions are in radical opposition to the established platform of the 2020 Democratic Party which has all but literally validated infanticide by the morally reprehensible tolerance of lawful termination of pregnancies as late as in the nineth month in some states, if it meets certain parameters such as causing “substantial and irremediable mental and/or physical impairment” to the health of the woman.
Two of Marxism’s Critical Theory pet projects, Gender Ideology and Transgenderism, were met head on by Gabbard’s co-sponsorship of the Protect Women’s Sports Act (H.R. 8932). The legislation seeks to protect the fairness of athletic competition by stipulating that sex shall be determined based on the biological sex, as pronounced at birth by a physician. The insanity of biologically established men competing in women’s sports competition, something today’s Democratic Party leadership feverishly supports, has nothing to do with perverse notions of “human rights” or “equality”, and all to do with postmodernist political adaptations of Marxism.
The Election Fraud Prevention Act (H.R.8285), another of Gabbard’s stellar legislative projects, seeks to amend the Help America Vote Act (2002) and nationally outlaw ballot harvesting by denying funds to states that permit it and implement other strict safeguards to assure the integrity of mail-in voting. This piece of legislation, presented on September 17, 2020, appeared to prophetically forecast the widespread irregularities and anomalies that plagued the 2020 presidential elections and offer a remedy. This position has brought Gabbard the wrath of many in her party, including the left’s folklore figure, Alexandra-Ocasio Cortez (AOC).
When the Hawaiian congresswoman chastised fellow Democratic colleague Ilhan Omar for benefitting from voter harvesting, as per a Project Veritas investigative video recording, AOC went ballistic and browbeat Gabbard. In the end, she invited AOC and Omar to join her in the crusade against the dangers of ballot harvesting, which is not a partisan issue. As it could logically be concluded, neither the “squad” nor the Democratic Party apparatus was even lukewarm to these needed electoral reforms. Here again, Gabbard proved to be a dissident within Obama’s radicalized party.
Some may label Gabbard as an opportunist. After all, she did throw her support for Bernie Sanders after withdrawing from the presidential race. However, when establishment politicians such as Hillary Clinton cynically branded her the likes of a Russian patsy, it should have been clear that something Gabbard was doing was supremely upsetting the Democratic Party. When one incorporates some of the legislation she has been supporting, it appears Gabbard has broken free from Obama’s democratic centralism.
This last Christmas, the brave Hawaiian House member tweeted the following: “Merry Christmas! As we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ on this most special day, we send you our aloha and best wishes.” In a not-too-distant past, it would be safe for any aspiring Democratic politician to pronounce oneself that way. Not today. The ultra-left controlling the doors of the Democratic Party would make sure you were ostracized for those pronouncements. Tulsi Gabbard appears to have broken free from this ideological stranglehold. The courageous course she has charted, as modest as they may be, could prove to be pathfinding for others within her party. For freedom’s sake, let us hope there are imitators.
Julio M Shiling, political scientist, writer, director of Patria de Martí and The Cuban American Voice, lecturer and media commentator. A native of Cuba, he currently lives in the United States. Twitter: @JulioMShiling // Julio es politólogo, escritor, director de Patria de Martí y The Cuban American Voice. Conferenciante y comentarista en los medios. Natural de Cuba, vive actualmente en EE UU.