From our US edition
Later this week, the Conservative Political Action Conference will convene for its annual gathering. Spectator USA has obtained a final copy of its official schedule. We are reprinting it here for the first time, in its entirety, and without comment.
From our US edition
When Tulsi Gabbard announced that she would seek the Democratic nomination in Hawaii’s 2nd district in 2011 she was quickly endorsed by a laundry list of liberal institutions including the Sierra Club and Emily’s List. She was asked to speak at the 2012 Democratic Convention and by 2015 she was Vice Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. National Democrats were eager to boost this rising star, but now that she is running for president they are just as eager to snuff her out. So why are Democrats giving her the cold shoulder? For starters, during the last election, Gabbard was not down with Team Clinton or the corruption that follows them.
From our US edition
Let’s make it clear right off the bat that Tulsi Gabbard will not be the Democratic nominee in 2020. The party’s base is so consumed with hatred for the president that only one criterion matters: which candidate can cast embody the spirit of The Anti-Trump. Do you hate the Orange Menace for his divisiveness, his crudity, his total lack of chill? Then lose yourself in Obama nostalgia with Cory Booker, Beto O’Rourke, and Joe Biden. Or are you looking for an all-out brawl, fascists v. reds, Spanish Civil War-style? Well, Elizabeth Warren is sharpening her tomahawk, and Bernie Sanders has his game face on. Gabbard is not the antithesis of Trump, in either temperament nor ideology. Quite the opposite: more than any of her colleagues, she resembles Trump circa 2016.
From our US edition
Fresh off her formal campaign announcement last weekend, Tulsi Gabbard took to the hallowed grounds of Morning Joe’s studio for a friendly sit-down interview. Surely the expectation was that Joe, Mika, and the rest of the gang would herald Tulsi’s history-making potential as the first female, minority, and non-Christian president. A trailblazer! An inspiration! Instead, the discussion immediately took on a dark, interrogatory tone, focused (as usual) on Tulsi’s alleged fondness for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. Kasie Hunt, the most overtly dimwitted of the Morning Joe crew, asked whether she thinks Assad ‘is a good person.
From our US edition
If Kamala Harris, who announced her candidacy on Martin Luther King Day, wins the presidency, she would not only be the first black woman to ascend to the Oval Office but also the first Democrat from California to accomplish that feat. The last two politicians to emerge from the Golden State and prove that they had the right stuff were both Republicans, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. Reagan personified the optimism of California Dreamin’; Nixon, a kind of grapes of wrath resentment that he reverse engineered to condemn liberal elites. Like Nixon, a red hunter par excellence, Harris has tried to play the Russia card to rise to prominence. Today it is Democrats who decry Moscow gold, while Republicans play kissy face with the Kremlin.
From our US edition
Few contemporary American political figures generate such unique disdain as Tulsi Gabbard, the Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii. The disdain is not unique for its tenacity – plenty of figures are on the receiving end of bitter criticism – but for its political composition. Gabbard straddles an ideological fissure that spans the Democratic and Republican party coalitions in ways that are difficult to pin down. Despite being an avowed progressive on policy issues and a frequent critic of President Trump, her most committed antagonists appear on the left.
