Us media reported last month that former congresswoman and 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard announced she was leaving the Democratic party. According to a US public radio report, Tulsi accused the party of being “under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers, driven by cowardly wokeness:”
Former congresswoman and 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard has announced she is leaving the Democratic party. “I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic party,” she said on an episode of her podcast. “It’s now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers, driven by cowardly wokeness…” Gabbard additionally accused the party of “stoking anti-white racism,” being contemptuous toward religion and police and driving the country closer to nuclear war. Gabbard was first elected to her native state of Hawaii’s legislature in 2002 as a Democrat, at the age of 21. She has identified as a Democrat ever since, she said. In 2012, Gabbard became the first Hindu and one of the first two female combat veterans elected to Congress. She began building a national profile during the 2016 election, when she resigned from her post as vice chairperson of the Democratic National Committee to endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders for president.
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A UK media report further details Gabbard’s role as a “darling of Russian propagandists and the American far-right” as well as her upbringing in a “virulently homophobic, often anti-Islamic and misogynist” cult:”
Tulsi Gabbard has staked out extreme positions on LGBT+ rights, spread disinformation about Ukrainian biolabs, and claimed she was being shadowbanned by Big Tech while using her vast social media footprint to label Joe Biden a “warmonger”. In one breath Gabbard expresses a desire to bring love and aloha from her native Hawaii to the world, in the next she is fanning conspiracy theories on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show. Last week, Gabbard announced she was leaving the Democratic Party, claiming it had become “an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness”. The decision came as little surprise to anyone who has followed her political trajectory from 2020 Democratic presidential candidate to darling of Russian propagandists and the American far-right. To understand her ambitions, her aunt Dr Caroline Sinavaiana Gabbard tells The Independent in an interview that it is necessary to look to her upbringing in a secretive cult called the Science of Identity Foundation (SIF) whose members show absolute loyalty to a reclusive guru, Chris Butler. A former member told The Independent the group’s teachings are virulently homophobic, often anti-Islamic and misogynist, and how they were forced to worship Butler, who is considered to be akin to a God.
The same report goes on to further detail Gabbard’s pro-Russian conspiracy theories on Ukraine and her political campaign support from a Putin apologist and an accused Russian spy:
In statements after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Gabbard contended that Ukraine was not worth protecting because it “isn’t actually a democracy,” and that the US-funded “biolabs” could result in the release of “dangerous pathogens”. This baseless claim echoed Russian propaganda that the United States was funding labs in Ukraine to make illegal biological weapons for use against Russia. Gabbard was not deterred, telling Jesse Watters on 15 March that freedom of speech in the US was at similar risk to Russia, which has banned all criticism of the government and imprisoned tens of thousands of protestors. “It is striking when you see Putin propaganda and you line it up against Biden propaganda,” she said. Forbes revealed earlier this year that Gabbard’s biggest political donor in 2021 is a pro-Putin apologist. And in March, it was revealed that Elena Branson, a dual US-Russian citizen accused of spying for the Kremlin, donated to her campaign for reelection to Congress in 2019.
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Ukraine has placed Gabbard on a list of US citizens promoting Russian propaganda.
A report in the Washington Examiner explains Gabbard’s objections to so-called “woke gender ideology:”
Former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard said “woke gender ideology” has gone too far and is now a “threat to children.” “Women fought for the right to compete on a level playing field in sports when they faced discrimination on the basis of sex,” Gabbard, who recently renounced the Democratic Party, told the Daily Wire. “Now, the progress women and girls have made is being eroded, and so-called woke gender ideology poses a unique threat to children who are not old enough to make such permanent, irreversible decisions.” Gabbard noted that the radical ideology transcends childhood and is now affecting those who join the United States military.
Read the rest here.
Opposition to “gender Ideology” and “wokeness” are key themes for Russia and the Global National Conservative (GNCA) alliance described in a GIOR report as follows:
Russian President PUTIN has expressed an interest in Russia becoming the ideological center of a new global conservative alliance, and European far-right leaders have taken pro-Russian positions based on a similar ideology. Hungary is at the center of a developing alliance between European far-right nationalists and American conservatives that Russia could potentially exploit for use in information warfare. This alliance operates under the rubric of “National Conservatism,” centered on national sovereignty, cultural identity, and opposition to global institutions and representing a potentially radical change for the US conservative movement away from long-held Reagan-era philosophies.
Read the full report here.
The Global Influence Operations Report (GIOR) reported recently on the role played by a Hungarian education facility supported by the Orban government in disseminating Russian-style anti-LGBTQ propaganda. We also reported last week on the new Italian far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the anti-gay positions of her and her coalition partners. GIOR has been reporting as well on Russian anti-gay positions, including the role of a Russian oligarch and far-right French MEPs in a secret project called “AltIntern,” intended to promote values such as “Christendom as the foundation of life” and marriage as “the union of a man and a woman.” We also reported last week on new Russian anti-gay legislation, amending a 2013 law that bans exposing minors to “gay propaganda.”
“Woke” is an English adjective meaning “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination” that originated in African-American Vernacular English. Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as sexism. It has also been used as shorthand for American Left ideas involving identity politics and social justice, such as the notion of white privilege and slavery reparations for African Americans. Of late, “woke” has been used indiscriminately by both sides of the political spectrum. As CNN reported in January:
If 2020 renewed calls for racial equality as Black Lives Matter protests exploded throughout Europe, 2021 brought in the backlash as parts of the political establishment waged a so-called “war against woke.” Stripped of its original meaning of a person being awake to progressive issues, “woke” has been appropriated from the Black vernacular and turned into a political lightning rod in the West’s culture wars. It is now used pejoratively by lawmakers and pundits from both left and right, criticizing the perceived excesses of social and racial justice movements. The politicization of the word, which has seen degrees of success in the United States, has bolstered political resistance to calls for more equality in Europe. The amorphous term has also been interpreted differently, depending on where it is deployed.
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GIOR reported in September on the third US-based National Conservatism Conference in Miami, where “wokeness” was a key topic.
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