Tulsi Gabbard’s Increasingly Compelling Candidacy

17 min readNov 29, 2019

TL;DR

There are a lot of Democrats running for president; not a lot that I can seriously consider supporting.
Though I disagree with Tulsi in a number of areas, she has many smart, respectful, and moderate positions.
I accept that I won’t agree entirely with any candidate and I recognize I need to be open to accepting some positions I disagree with with any candidate.
In Tulsi Gabbard’s character, service and story, her positions, and her approach, I see a candidate that is increasingly interesting and viable.
I don’t know that I’ll vote for Tulsi, or that I’ll have the chance to, but I see how I could, and that is a lot more than I can say for most of the individuals seeking to serve as the next President.

I’ve voted Libertarian the last two presidential elections and, as an unlikely Trump voter in 2020, I am assessing candidates to see if I can get behind anyone that is currently running. I’m open to the reality that I probably won’t be 100% in agreement with anyone, and so am trying to look through several lenses that matter to me to assess who I can most find common ground with.

Politically, I’m a libertarian-leaning voter. However, that is tempered and balanced by other important parts of me (my wife is a therapist and I’m apparently now conditioned to think of myself in terms of “parts” regardless of what I’m thinking about… thank you, M…). Those parts, or lenses, include my faith (I’m a Christian), my family (I’m a husband and father), my profession (I’m a security-focused small business owner), and other interests and parts of my identity.

There are a lot of interesting candidates running for President. For a number of reasons, I know it is highly unlikely that I will vote for President Trump. I’ll certainly consider the Libertarian nominee, as I’ve voted LP (@LPnational) the last two presidential elections. This year, more than any other election cycle, I’ve really tried to be open to alternative voices to see if I can support enough of where they are coming from to accept those ideas I may disagree with. There are things I like about Cory Booker and Amy Klobucher, but I can’t get behind their campaigns right now. Biden is not my guy, and even though there is a lot to respect and appreciate about the more left wing options, I’ll likely never vote for a Bernie or Warren (aside, here’s a good, recent, podcast to listen to if you’re trying to understand some basic ideas about a pro-market view vs. a modern American socialist perspective: The Soho Forum Debates, “Is Socialism Preferable to Capitalism?” via Gene Epstein, @GeneSohoForum and moderated by @reason’s Nick Gillespie, @nickgillespie).

A few candidates I’ve really looked closely at are Pete Buttigieg, who I considered before realizing I couldn’t, and Andrew Yang. Yang is really interesting but would be much more interesting if he’d take his energy and ideas and entertain more market-driven approaches to tackling the issues he is raising. Some of my previous posts include:

More recently, I’ve taken a long look at Tulsi Gabbard. There are definitely areas I disagree with her, but there are a lot of areas where I either strongly agree or can at least appreciate her reasonable and mostly centrist approaches. In the below, I share some perspective as to why I think Tulsi is an increasingly compelling candidate in the 2020 election. I looked at her background, her website, and a few recent interviews she’s done.

Candidly, one of the most interesting things about her is the fact that so many people seem to be against her. That was one of the things that had me curious to learn more. I mean, if all the politicians and media I usually disagree with are disagreeing with her, maybe there is something interesting to be found… It has been really curious to see how unwelcome she has been by so many Democrats for reasons I can’t clearly understand. Meeting with Assad? Supporting Bernie in 2016? Some of her positions? One of the places I looked to get a sensing of who Tulsi is was the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast #1391, where Rogan, @joerogan, speaks with Tulsi Gabbard & Jocko Willink (@jockowillink).

Five minutes in, Rogan makes a point about the peculiar disdain facing Tulsi from her own party, when one might think she would be so embraced based on what the DNC suggests it wants. I made a similar observation recently (see image at left). Rogan says,

“a clear recognition that what they want verses what they say they want are two very different things. The Democratic party always been like ‘we want a woman,’ okay gotcha a woman. How about a woman that’s a veteran, check, how about a woman that’s a congressman, how ‘bout that, congresswoman, veteran, (Tulsi adds, “a minority”), minority… all these positives… they should be behind, they should have wind in your sails, but no.”

The Rogan interview gets into some of the “Hillary Clinton-Tulsi is a Russian Asset” nonsense, and the Democrats’ silence around those comments at about the twenty-three-minute mark. That and the whole show are worth a listen and you can link to it below.

So, what is “Tulsi2020" about? In addition to the Rogan interview and her public and social media comments, I thought “let’s look at her website and see what she says there,” as I did with Andrew Yang, among others. I won’t get into all her positions — you can do that here — but I’ve picked a few as examples of where Tulsi may be the most interesting candidate and examples of where I don’t necessarily agree, but where I may be able to accept some disagreement.

Two areas that resonate deeply with me are foreign engagement and respecting our Constitutional rights. There are a couple areas where I really like where she is coming from, and some I’m willing to be open to.

End regime change wars. “Regime change wars — toppling foreign governments we don’t like — have drained our country of trillions of dollars, undermined our national security, and cost the lives of thousands of our men and women in uniform. My first responsibility as your Commander in Chief will be to put an end to this disastrous foreign policy that has been perpetuated by warmongers in both political parties.”

“As president, I will lead this country to bring about a bold change in our foreign policy that bends the arc of history away from war and towards peace. That stops wasting our resources, and our lives on regime change wars, and redirects our focus and energy towards peace and prosperity for all people. The time is now to give up the gunboat diplomacy of the past, and instead, work out our differences with communication, negotiations, and goodwill.”

While in the Army, I was stationed in the United States and Germany, and served tours in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. I’ll save the war stories but will say each of those missions was very frustrated and very frustrating. Watching things fall apart for no good reason as we sat in the aftermath of our invasion victory in Iraq in 2003 was hard. When we started losing Soldiers, it was painful, when Soldiers started killing themselves, it was infuriating. Our foreign policy is broken, and expensive — in blood and treasure. Neither Tulsi, nor most libertarians, promote isolationism, as many try to dismiss the desire to end our reckless foreign adventures as. Rather, this is about smarter policy, less war, more engagement, the application of diplomacy and soft power and trying to return America to a position of leadership and a positive example to the world around us.

I remember the vitriol liberals spewed at George W. Bush after the Iraq invasion. Somehow, the bizarre embrace of the W-John Bolton-Hillary Clinton and broader neo-conservative embrace of war — in Iraq, in Syria, in Libya, in Iran — is now the accepted position of most of the candidates running for President. How the 2016 Democratic candidate for president can be lumped into the same bucket as W and neo-cons is an amazing thought on its own.

Gabbard has taken a lot of grief for having met with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in 2017. Tom O’Conner, @ShaolinTom, provides a fair summary in Newsweek here: “The Tulsi Gabbard Bashar Al-Assad Controversy Explained” (01 Aug 19). The Rogan interview gets into that around fifty-minutes in and Jocko provides some great perspective on what it means to go to war — a perspective most politicians fail to understand. We need to stop our endless wars and confused foreign policy. Around thirty-nine-minutes into the Rogan podcast, Tulsi speaks to the military decision-making process, vs. governing by Twitter… an idea that should resonate with many. Most Americans should be able to get behind less war and more diplomacy. Ron Paul fans and libertarians should certainly be able to support diplomatic engagement and an end to open-ended, regime-change wars. How is the party that nominated John Kerry in 2004 now a pro-war party? It is time for change. No one is making that case more, and more effectively, than Gabbard.

Closely related to that issue is one of the Constitutional areas that are very important to me — my First Amendment rights. I do not need a President to try and use the threat of force to advance any religious agenda, even if it is associated with my faith. I attend an Evangelical Christian church and I greatly appreciate my pastor and my biblical education, though I often disagree with the political application. While I appreciate some of President Trump’s seeming instincts regarding foreign engagement and the role of the United States, I cannot support the Trump Administration’s embrace of modern Christian Zionism and the associated policies, nor the uncoordinated and poorly executed suggestions and half-hearted attempts to disentangle some of our current missions. His actions with Afghanistan, Syria, and the Kurdish people haven’t been all badly intended, just ineptly executed. Further, I don’t need a president to advance a Christian foreign policy today any more than I want a Muslim president to advance an Islamic foreign policy tomorrow.

I need a president that values my right to freely worship, as codified in the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” That’s it. Let me worship God my way. Tulsi says, “my two primary sources of inspiration, spiritual comfort, and illumination come from the New Testament, and the Bhagavad Gita (the song of God), the ancient Hindu scripture spoken over 5000 years ago.” With her own spiritual understanding, I’m confident Gabbard will respect other Americans’ freedom to seek God, or not, and to worship as they see fit, without being beholden to a particular block of voters and policies. As a person of faith, that is as much as I need government to do with regards to religion.

Protect our civil liberties. “Our right to privacy, guaranteed by the 4th Amendment of the Constitution, is constantly under attack by overreaching intelligence agencies and big tech monopolies that falsely invoke national security to take away our civil liberties, privacy, and freedoms.”

“We have to remember that the first casualty of war is often our constitutional rights, our civil liberties, and privacy. We saw how in the previous Cold War, suspicion and government surveillance of American civilians increased. We remember the House Committee on Unamerican Activities. We got a glimpse of how our society changed when we look back to that McCarthy era, and we see the invasive activities of the FBI at that time. And then we look today with technology, the broad reach of surveillance in our country, that risk is even greater now.”

Our civil rights need to be protected. With increasingly rapid developments in technology and our personal data being traded loosely, and stolen frequently, we need a leader that will seriously discuss these ideas. Gabbard may be more open to regulation here than I may like but this is a big issue that needs to be seriously discussed and debated. Too many politicians today are ignorant and disengaged on this issue, or too quick to suggest things like backdoors and questionable Constitutional access to personal property in the name of security. Too often, Oregon’s Senator Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) seems like a one man Army trying to protect American’s data and privacy rights. We need a leader that will stand up for privacy rights, challenge law enforcement and corporate interests, and encourage a good debate on how to best do that. This is important to me as a person, but even more so as a father. My kids are growing up in an age when their personal information is being stored all over the cloud, being sold and compromised on a regular basis and where their digital presence is being immortalized. As a nation, we need to wrap our heads around what that means, and as we do, we need to protect our privacy. That may open up conversations on regulation I might reject, or at least require hard convincing of, but we need to have the conversation.

End the failed war on drugs. “The failed war on drugs is an attack on our values of freedom and fairness as Americans. In recent years, many states have taken initiative by legalizing marijuana, reforming drug laws and sentencing guidelines, and winding down the ‘War on Drugs.’ Now it’s time for the federal government to do its part.” Most Democrats and Republicans are scared to seriously talk about this issue. In a really good interview with John Stossel (@JohnStossel) for Reason, Stossel and Gabbard address this, an area that libertarians should be strongly supportive of. See the complete Stossel interview here and an abbreviated version here, or read it in the January 2020 issue. In the written interview, Gabbard is quoted saying,

“This is a free country. I’ve never smoked marijuana. I never will. I’ve never drank alcohol. I’ve chosen not to in my life. But this is about free choice, and if somebody wants to do that, our country should not be making a criminal out of them for doing so.”

She continues and smartly discusses decriminalization, noting Portugal as a good example (for more on that, read the “Cato institute’s Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Drug Policies,” 02 Apr 09). It is time to end endless, regime change wars, and failed domestic wars — including the war on drugs. We need a leader that will legalize, or the least decriminalize marijuana, and seriously look at the same for other drugs, as we at the same time look at real criminal justice reform, to help many of those stuck in our jails now, to free up wasted dollars, and to better employ our police focuses on serious security matters.

There are some topics that our country will be split about. As such, we need to be open to finding fair middle ground and reasonable compromises. I know some of the topics cause instinctive reactions for many, but if we pause and breathe, we may be able to appreciate that we need to be able to come to acceptable positions on difficult issues. Political parties, politicians, the media, even our foreign adversaries (and sometimes allies) often try to separate the population with polarizing options — “with me or against me” type positions. When a politician compromises, extremists on any side of an issue often punish that compromise with scorn and hit them at the polls. But thoughtful leadership requires us to accept a few things. Among those:

We should be humble enough to acknowledge we could be wrong on some things;
We should recognize that on any even-somewhat-controversial issue, probably about half the country disagrees with any opinion and therefore any solution to an issue requires compromise and some mutual disappointment;
Compromising to find acceptable solutions is harder than objecting and refusing to compromise;
We should be able to be open to accepting the possibility of some issues we disagree with;
We should recognize that the more we centralize authority and policymaking, the more frustrated we will tend to be at the individual level.

While still a little too on the left for me in some areas, Gabbard hits some reasonable, middle-ground positions in the below examples.

Reform our broken immigration system. “On immigration, I will not accept the false choice between compassion and security that is currently being offered to us. It will be my policy to balance border security, have an asylum process that reflects our values as a nation of immigrants, and include a path to legal status for DREAMers.”

As an immigrant, I appreciate this, and as a security professional, I appreciate this. The idea off open borders sounds great to many of us. The free flow of people can add a lot to our country and some great individual opportunity. On the whole, there is likely much more to gain than be lost from open borders. However, the President needs to protect the American people, and a realistic assessment of the threats our country faces on a daily basis points to the fact that open borders would likely be abused and taken advantage of for violence that would harm our country. The President needs to ensure reasonable security efforts are in place. Further, though it is largely Congress that needs to act, we need a President willing to thoughtfully and compassionately deal with our current failed policies, to include how we deal with the fact that we have many illegal residents that should have a pathway to citizenship. It is insane to think someone has lived here, worked here, in some cases served in our armed forces, and that they may be sent back to their country of origin for no really good reason.

Guarantee quality healthcare for all. “Everyone deserves quality healthcare in our country. As president, I will work to ensure all Americans have that quality healthcare through a single-payer system that is incentivized to increase health and prevent and heal disease, whilst allowing individuals to access private insurance if they choose.”

I used to be completely against this. But I’ve reconsidered my position. As a business owner, I know how expensive healthcare is, and I do the best I can to provide the most I can for my team. But it is hard, and it is expensive. As a father and husband, and as a Christian, I can’t accept that in these great United States someone may have to suffer without access to basic healthcare. I shared some ideas in this thread encouraging consideration of a proposal with similarity to Gabbard’s approach.

I am very cautious of well-intentioned government mandates for businesses. There are some ideas I appreciate but also know could cripple me as a small business owner. But ensuring every American can access basic healthcare is something we have to figure out. Another area I can’t really get on board with but am at a point I think I can grudgingly accept, is the possibility of raising the minimum wage. There are real, sensible economic reasons to object to raising - let alone having - a minimum wage, but given our mixed (free and government-involved) economy, there are arguments to be made the other way as well. Trying to balance instinctive political leanings with compassion and understanding, these are issues I think a lot of us can be open to.

Protect the Second Amendment while ensuring gun safety. “I will uphold our constitutional right to bear arms while also upholding our responsibility to keep our children and communities safe from people who seek to do us harm.”

“The time for action is now. We cannot allow partisan politics to get in the way of taking meaningful action in areas where both parties agree and that have the support of most Americans across this country. Here are a few examples: Both Democrats and Republicans support legislation I have co-sponsored to ban bump stocks. Both Democrats and Republicans support legislation to uphold Second Amendment rights and strengthen the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Now is the time for us to come together and to take meaningful action towards responsible, common sense gun safety reform.”

I like guns. One of the most fun things I’ve ever done is sit behind an M2 .50 caliber machine gun and unload. It is awesome. I own a gun, because I want to be able to protect my family if needed. I don’t hunt but don’t object to responsible hunting or shooting sports. Our right to own guns is Constitutional and has been upheld in court many times. But the right to own a gun doesn’t mean there is no reasonable process to go through prior to completing a gun purchase. There are requirements to drive, to get through an airport, to do many jobs… there is no reason we can’t come to reasonable terms on background checks or other simple processes to try and increase responsible gun ownership. No one needs to buy a gun impulsively. While it would be nice to think we could live without any gun rules or restrictions, reality is unhealthy and bad people have done bad things with guns. Yes, it is very likely that regulations will not prevent many determined attackers, and others may be unnecessarily clunky and may be only marginally effective. But a little burden is a price most people seem ready to live with to potentially stop even one more tragic death. If it might save the life of a loved one, I can wait a few days to have a gun. I’ll live. The would-be victim might not.

The most divisive issue I think our country faces is the pro-life / pro-choice debate. So hard, so emotional, so understandably difficult. We will almost always disagree as a country on this issue. I would prefer a very federalist approach here where we let states or better, local communities, decide how to handle this. But this is a national issue. As such, I have to be able to set aside my personal beliefs and recognize there are many others who will see this differently. I think Tulsi is approaching this gently and reasonably, understanding that our country is and will remain divided on this. Protect a woman’s right to choose. Tulsi states,

“I agree with Hillary Clinton when she said abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. We must commit to defending a woman’s right to choose. The government has no place in making that most personal of decisions. I support codifying Roe v. Wade while making sure that during the third trimester, abortion is not an option unless the life or severe health consequences of a woman are at risk.”

This is probably the most controversial and sensitive topic in America today, even more than guns. I know many disagree here but for those of us that don’t make one’s position on abortion a litmus test, this is a reasonable, moderate position.

I accept that I won’t agree entirely with any candidate. I’d love to see Tulsi take a more federalist approach to some things. But on the whole, in Gabbard’s character, service and story, her positions, and her approach, I see a candidate that is increasingly interesting and viable. I don’t know that I’ll vote for Tulsi, or that I’ll have the chance to, but I see how I could, and that is a lot more than I can say for most candidates seeking to serve as President.

Tulsi Gabbard’s Increasingly Compelling Candidacy

Written by Andy Jabbour