Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Tulsi Gabbard vs. Donald Trump

Tulsi Gabbard
By Robert Wenzel

I keep seeing comments along these lines under posts:
"She could just as easily turn on a dime if elected. I doubt her cabinet would look any different than BHO's."
--- 
"We thought we were getting that from Trump. At least until he threw his lot in with the NeoCons."
This is not the correct understanding of the situation. 

Those who think Trump flipped after the election just weren't paying attention.

The signs were obvious during the campaign that he was far from an anti-interventionist.

Here are just a couple of the posts I wrote before Trump was elected:

 BREAKING Trumps says he disapproves of Putin's actions in eastern Ukraine (May 17, 2016)

Trump Just Recommend a Book Co-Written By a Super Neocon and a Military Lunatic (July 23, 2016)

Here is what I wrote during the Republican convention:
If Trump wins the election, historians in future decades are going to play back the clips from this night to show there were clear signals that Trump was surrounding himself with major war mongers before the great wars began.
Tulsi Gabbard is nothing like this. She has a deep intellectual and principled understanding of why the adventures of the American empire are wrong and dangerous. On top of that, she is smart and tough.

She is still a long shot but I don't think anyone in MSM or the other candidates have figured out the very shrewd campaign strategy she is executing.

Further, she is independent. She resigned from her very powerful position at the Democratic National Committee when she wanted to go in a different direction. There are extremely few that would do something like that.

She also ignored warnings from fellow Democrats and met with Trump after he was elected.

In other words, she isn't swayed easily. And she won't fold like a cheap suit.

That said, we all know the establishment is very powerful. A producer friend I know told me that the former presidential candidate Gary Hart was thinking of writing a script which explains how top presidential candidates get paid a visit by representatives of the elite who "explain the rules."

So we can't rule out that Gabbard wouldn't get such a visit if she starts polling well. But at the same time, she appears to be a very strategic thinker who might know how to overpower or deflect or confuse the opposition when she is in a tight position.

Right now, she has the right perspective on U.S. military action overseas and there is no one I would rather see as president to see if the military-industrial-complex can be tamed, if not destroyed.

This is an extremely tall order, but of all the candidates, she is the only one willing enough and tough enough to try it.

Trump may bumble into the right position, Mr. Magoo style, on occasion but he can't be counted on. If the wars can be stopped and the public made to understand why they should be stopped, she is the only one that might be able to do it. Could she do it if she was in office? I have no idea but I would like to see her get the chance to try.


Robert Wenzel is Editor & Publisher of EconomicPolicyJournal.com and Target Liberty. He also writes EPJ Daily Alert and is author of The Fed Flunks: My Speech at the New York Federal Reserve Bank and most recently Foundations of Private Property Society Theory: Anarchism for the Civilized Person Follow him on twitter:@wenzeleconomics and on LinkedIn. His youtube series is here: Robert Wenzel Talks Economics. More about Wenzel here.

2 comments:

  1. I donated $1 to her campaign to help her get on the debate stage.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Even at staged events, Tulsi comes across authentic and sincere. It is a skill that will serve her well as more people see her in action on the campaign trail. She is confidant, speaks articulately, and does so in a way that is non-combative but rather firm and definitive.

    ReplyDelete