There’s a popular if not terribly rigorous take on politics called the “horseshoe theory” that holds that extreme ideologies of the left and right tend to converge. There are some obviously correct elements of this theory, such as the common tendency of fascists and communists to favor one-party states and kill a lot of their perceived enemies. But cultural issues in particular cause a lot of problems for the claim that extremists are pretty much all the same: Not too many fascists favor LGBTQ+ or abortion rights, and not too many commies are into “traditional families.”
Accordingly, you don’t really see many people or politicians go from far left to far right or back again. An exception is clearly former Democratic congresswoman and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard. A big-time backer of Bernie Sanders in 2016, and a favorite of the anti-war left, Gabbard’s most famous moment on the 2020 Democratic nomination trail was her sharp attack on Kamala Harris in a debate for putting “over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations” as a prosecutor.
Today, though, Gabbard is scheduled be the keynote speaker at a Mar-a-Lago fundraising dinner for the 917 Society — a nonprofit best known for distributing pocket-size copies of the Constitution, The Daily Beast reports.
I don’t know if this is Gabbard’s first trip to Trump’s Florida lair, but it has been reported that he and his advisers have met with her during the last year to discuss her favorite subject, notes the Washington Post:
The talks with Gabbard — who has staked out a role as an outspoken critic of aid to Ukraine and U.S. military interventions overseas — are part of a broader conversation about how Trump would manage the Pentagon differently if voters award him a second term. Trump has repeatedly told advisers and donors in recent months that one of his biggest mistakes was his personnel choices at the Pentagon, where he says he was stymied by officials with diverging opinions.
Gabbard hasn’t endorsed Trump for president just yet, but she’s definitely been on a sojourn toward MAGA-land for a while now. Her strongly anti-interventionist views (including hostility to any aid to Ukraine) have been a constant. But in October 2022, she formally left the Democratic Party, hurling an assortment of leftish and rightish insults at her old team, as NBC News reported at the time:
Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii announced Tuesday that she’s leaving the Democratic Party because it’s “now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness.”
In a video statement posted on social media, Gabbard, 41, accused Democrats of dividing the country “by racializing every issue, stoking anti-white racism” and “actively working to undermine our God-given freedoms enshrined in our Constitution.”
“The Democrats of today are hostile to people of faith and spirituality,” she continued. “They demonize the police and protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans. The Democrats of today believe in open borders and weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents. Above all else, the Democrats of today are dragging us ever closer to nuclear war.”
Soon thereafter, Gabbard’s trajectory was made clear by her endorsement of the Senate candidacy of MAGA favorite J.D. Vance. And before long, she was the favorite indie validator available to Republicans, as Politico explained:
“Many campaigns are embracing her because she’s a former Democrat who has woken up to the left’s extreme policies,” said one GOP lawmaker who has worked with her in the past, speaking candidly about Gabbard on condition of anonymity. “Yes, her views have tended to be isolationist, but we have always had civil and respectful engagements on a personal level.”
Gabbard doesn’t come across as a simple flip-flopper; as noted above, her anti-interventionism has been constant, along with an insistence on calling out “Islamic terrorism” by its specific name. And beyond that, some of her newly conservative cultural views may well draw on her distant past as a young Hawaii lawmaker who opposed abortion and was the daughter of the state’s chief opponent of marriage equality. She doesn’t seem that opportunistic, either, since she has often embraced unpopular positions, as in her willingness to defend Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. In limited ways, moreover, she really does reinforce the horseshoe theory: Her hatred (that’s the only word for it) of Hillary Clinton as a lefty presidential candidate (she sued Clinton for defamation) certainly doesn’t make her stand out in Mar-a-Lago.
But it’s possible she’s about to become something other than a political fashion accessory for the GOP and Trump. At an event in South Carolina earlier this week, Fox News’ Laura Ingraham asked him about a list of vice-presidential prospects that included Tim Scott, Vivek Ramaswamy, Ron DeSantis, Byron Donalds, Kristi Noem … and Gabbard. Trump replied: All “of those people are good. They’re all solid.” (His campaign later clarified that DeSantis was not under consideration, and that Elise Stefanik was a possibility, too.)
It’s well known that Team Trump is interested in broadening his coalition by choosing a veep who is a woman, a person of color, or someone well outside the political Establishment. Gabbard fits all three criteria. She’s also a longtime National Guard member who served in Iraq, addressing another of Trump’s own weaknesses. Additionally, the 45th president and former reality-TV star is known to have an eye for physical attractiveness. And last year, Gabbard headed up a list of the world’s “hottest politicians.” She’s even an avid surfer and mixed-martial artist. All in all, she’s a made-to-market action figure.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle to a Trump-Gabbard ticket is her independent streak. Even if she’s currently MAGA aligned, would she have the personal loyalty to Trump that failed in arch-sycophant Mike Pence when the chips were down? There are also persistent questions about her longtime relationship with a cultish Hawaii circle whose leader was homophobic and allegedly abusive. Any proto-candidacy might not survive a full vice-presidential vetting.
But don’t be surprised if she stays on Trump’s veep list for a while — or totally shocked if he actually taps her. The former president is not a man free of his own questionable past, and he probably doesn’t care at all what happens to his party once he’s done. Tulsi Gabbard could be just weird and controversial enough to make sense as a running mate in Trump’s final, apocalyptic campaign.
