October 17, 2022 at 11:31 a.m.
The grand coalition
The grand coalition
It's hardly a surprise. Ever since she dared to speak with President Trump after the 2016 election - a dialogue about Christians in Syria, which kind of rubbed the military establishment the wrong way - the neoliberal left has branded her as a Russian asset and, simultaneously, as pretty much an alt-right domestic terrorist.
Laying aside the absurdity of the Russian pejorative - in the New McCarthyism these days, anybody who disagrees with the Democratic Party establishment is a Russian agent - Tulsi Gabbard is also no alt-right conservative, or any kind of conservative, for that matter.
To wit, after she dropped out of the 2020 presidential campaign, she endorsed and voted for Joe Biden. She's pro-choice on abortion and supports federal funding for abortion. She was endorsed in her congressional campaign by the Sierra Club, and so on and so on.
Even so, Gabbard has not been in lockstep with the Democratic Party establishment for some time now, and the gap has been growing. She has opposed the pro-war neoconservative establishment that firmly controls the party, and she has been disturbed by the growing authoritarianism within the party's ranks. Above all else, Gabbard has been alarmed by the growing Democratic bias against not just the First Amendment but the entire U.S. constitution.
Here's what she had to say about her departure:
"I can no longer remain in today's Democratic Party. It's now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness who divide us by rationalizing every issue and stoking anti-white racism, who actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms enshrined in our constitution, and who are hostile to people of faith and spirituality, who demonize the police, who protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans, who believe in open borders, who weaponize the national security state to go after their political opponents and above all, are dragging us ever closer to nuclear war. Now, these are some of the main reasons I'm leaving the Democratic Party."
Reasons enough, we would say. Indeed, we could have written that paragraph ourselves, if we were members of the Democratic Party. But we aren't, and in fact it was written by a liberal now ex-Democrat, and that's an important point we will circle back around to.
It's also important to know that Tulsi Gabbard is not alone. Far from it. Disaffected center-left Democrats are leaving the party in droves, a fact that the mainstream media likes to ignore. There's independent journalist Glenn Greenwald, for instance, one of the earliest supporters of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who now says the Democratic Party is engaged in the very fascism it says it is fighting.
Here's how Greenwald, who still considers himself a man of the left, sums up the situation: "The problem is that there is little 'real left' in the U.S. The Bernie/AOC 'left' is all that exists. And it's a joke, totally lost and without any ideological anchor. They're just Democrats, never saying anything to offend mainstream liberal sensibilities or neoliberal pieties."
Indeed, Greenwald opines, what passes for the American left - as opposed to the European left, which is a much, much different creature - is really nothing more than an alliance of militarists, woke corporations, and international government bureaucracies whose self-serving mission is to accumulate power, both military and economic.
As he points out, take a look at the American left's foreign policy, and you don't find it much different from the GOP foreign policy of the Bush-Cheney era.
"If you can find even one major difference between (a) not just standard mainstream liberals but what passes for the U.S. left and (b) the David Frums, Lindsey Grahams, John Brennans and Bill Kristols of the world on foreign policy, tell me what it is," he says.
There are other Democrats fleeing because of the left's preoccupation with dismantling civil liberties. Take Jenin Younes, for example, a life-long liberal Democrat who has helped to found an alternative to the now partisan ACLU.
"It is becoming ever more clear that the legacy of COVID is the emergence of an increasingly authoritarian society, one in which government (especially Democrats), big tech, and big pharma operate together to control Americans' thoughts, speech, and medical decisions," Younes recently wrote. " ... Nothing any Republican politician has done has made me feel as dehumanized, humiliated, and commodified as these Democrats are now. I'm taking my fury to the ballot box, and I hope you all do, too."
These are celebrities and semi-celebrities, to be sure, but a multitude of likeminded voices are shouting from the grassroots, too. Said one suburbanite on Twitter, which is so representative of many others:
"I'm a pro-choice suburban mom. Long-time blue voter. This November, I'm voting Republican straight down the ticket. The Democrats who locked up my kids can go f - - - themselves."
We suspect the magnitude of this vote - this movement - is being under-measured by the polls and by the media. But whether that is so or not, there is a discernible movement out of the Democratic Party by what can be called the civil liberties and/or Old Left Democrats.
Make no mistake, while many if not most of them will vote Republican this fall, they are not joining the Republican Party, at least not yet. That said, that conservatives and libertarians must form a grand coalition with these newly exiled political refugees is not just to take advantage of an opportunity; it is a moral imperative.
Once upon a time, the two parties represented real differences, debatable political differences, but within the left and right there was one constant: Most everyone believed in the United States constitution. That founding document ensures free speech, individual and religious liberty, due process, and all the protections individuals need against a potentially oppressive government and/or the tyranny of the majority.
With those assurances and protections, with each other's political and civil liberties guaranteed, liberals and conservatives could debate policy and move forward toward national consensus and compromise.
That is no longer the case. The Democratic Party now forcefully and openly rejects the U.S. constitution. It forcefully and openly rejects free speech and civil liberties. It openly defies the constitution with its ongoing engagement in military imperialism abroad.
Now we circle back to Gabbard's words. As she reminds us, the Democratic Party now is elitist and militaristic; it is racist in its anti-white policies and sexist in its efforts to sacrifice women's sex-based rights upon the affluent altar of gender self-declaration. It's anti-religious freedom; anti-law enforcement; anti-national identity and anti-national borders; and anti-worker.
It's mostly anti-anything that does not help the party establishment accrue power and privilege, or that promotes the individual as an identifiable person with real feelings and authentic human desires and rights.
Within a broad opposition to this totalitarianism is also a broad agreement among democratic republicans on the importance of individual liberty and splintered power. That's why Gabbard's words can resonate so much with conservatives. We may disagree on the specifics, but there is our bond on overarching principles. Those fleeing the Democratic Party are those who still believe in the U.S. constitution, and they must be our allies in preserving the liberty it represents.
There is plenty enough time to engage in forceful, robust debate over policy differences - that's what our democratic republic is all about - but first there must be a free stage upon which such debate can take place, and preserving that stage is the battle both the liberal and conservative sides of constitutional democracy must fight together to preserve.
The day that those voices for democracy go silent, the day vigorous, friendly debate vanishes, the day when dissent and protests are criminalized - that's the day freedom is annihilated.
That's the day the modern-day Democratic Party wins its way with its fascism.
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