Tulsi Gabbard, the soon-to-be-former Congresswoman from Hawaii with the dubious distinction of being one of only two representatives currently serving as Democrats not to vote to impeach Donald Trump for trying to blackmail a foreign government into interfering in the US presidential election this year has endorsed Nina Turner in Turner's bid to replace Rep. Marcia Fudge. Fudge, who represents Ohio's 11th Congressional District, has been tapped by President-elect Biden to head up the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Gabbard, one of Turner's highest-profile endorsements, has a storied past. White supremacists like her, even though she says she doesn't support them. She's struck up friendships with Vladimir Putin and Bashar Al Assad and reveled in enmity with Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris. She has managed to simultaneously master antisemitism and Islamophobia, which may be one reason white supremacists are fond of her. And no sooner had she shaken off her past as a homophobe, she introduced a bill in the House to tell trans-women that they're not really women as her parting gift to Congress.
On a fine November morning in 2019, the white supremacist radio program Stormfront Radio rebranded itself as "The Morning Aloha Report." The inspiration for the name change? It came from Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, then a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, according to the show's promoter, one David Duke of the Ku Klux Klan.
Why would a white supremacist Klan radio show associate itself with a Hawaiian of Samoan ancestry? The common thread, it turned out, was basically this: "at least she isn't with the dirty Jews" (not an actual quote, an impression). When David Duke endorsed Gabbard for president, he said that she would put "America first, not Israel first!"
Gabbard rejected Duke's endorsement (but Turner hasn't rejected Gabbard's), but for some reason, antisemites and neo-Nazis kept flocking to her. She earned accolades from Richard Spencer, Mike Cernovich, and Ron Paul, just to name a few. The Daily Stormer, the website responsible for the radio show formerly named Stormfront Radio and renamed in Gabbard's honor, took credit for making sure Tulsi Gabbard qualified for the first two Democratic presidential primary debates, in one of which her attack on Kamala Harris was credited by Harris's alt-left critics for "ending" Harris. Harris is now the Vice President-elect, so it is debatable just how much she was 'ended', but I digress.
Gabbard needed 65,000 donors to qualify to participate in the first two debates, and when it looked like she wasn't going to make it, the Daily Stormer sprang into action and helped her get there. Why? "To make the Jews go nuts."
They had good reason to believe in Gabbard's antisemitic bona fides after Gabbard secretly met with Vladimir Putin's puppet and Syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad, who was in the midst of committing genocide against his own people. The meeting was arranged by - and Gabbard was escorted during her visit by - a fascist, militant political party that uses women as suicide bombers. Perhaps Nina Turner condones fascist political parties, because hey, at least that means we can cut defense spending, right?
When Hillary Clinton called her out (without naming her, I might add) for her closeness with Putin and Assad, Gabbard became outraged and in a Trumpian move, filed a meritless defamation lawsuit that she would later drop, likely because the truth is an absolute defense against defamation. Gabbard's antagonism against Hillary Clinton may well be music to Nina Turner's ears, who helped Bernie Sanders smear and fatally wound Hillary Clinton's candidacy in 2016.
But the alt-right can be assured that Gabbard's antisemitism is not, in their black and white world, indicative of her friendliness to Islam. Gabbard repeatedly bludgeoned President Obama for refusing to accept the premise that foreign terrorists had a legitimate claim to representing Islam, saying it was important to stress that America was fighting Islamic extremists. Luckily for the white nationalists, Gabbard never insisted that perpetrators of white supremacist domestic terrorism be branded as Christian extremists.
The flip side of alt-right's white nationalism is their defense of the fragility of the male ego. One can never be quite a full-on alt-rightist without a healthy dose of homophobia and transphobia. Luckily, Gabbard brings both in copious supply. She stated in unequivocal terms that Hawaii should not legalize marriage equality because that would be acquiescing to "homosexual extremists", people who were apparently also trying to mess up her father's run for Congress by inquiring about a cultish religious sect she and her father belong to.
During her presidential campaign, Gabbard retracted and apologized for her homophobic comments, but the fact that she had not done so until the comments resurfaced in light of her presidential campaign leaves doubts about her sincerity. And as a parting shot during her waning days in Congress, Gabbard introduced a bill banning transgender women and girls from participating in women's sports. Gabbard was joined in sponsoring the bill by such progressive luminaries as Oklahoma Republican Rep. Markwayne Mullin, who was one of the 126 House Republicans urging the Supreme Court to overturn the election, as well as Republican Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler (yes, that Kelly Loeffler).
This is the person whose backing of Nina Turner has sparked celebration among the supporters of Bernie Sanders, who are excited at the opportunity to grow the freedom caucus of the left without ever having to contest in a swing district. This the person whose endorsement Nina Turner's house is building on. Nina Turner is building a campaign on the support of someone who cozied up with nationalist dictators, someone who gave more benefit of the doubt to Donald Trump than to Kamala Harris, someone whom white nationalists found irresistible.
But Nina Turner can't help who supports her! When it's this high profile an endorsement, yes, she can. She can categorically reject and renounce Gabbard's support, but she won't.
In fact, Nina Turner and Tulsi Gabbard have built up quite the chummy relationship over the years.
Thanks Sister!!!!
— Nina Turner (@ninaturner) July 8, 2020
Because Nina Turner's moral core is bankrupt.