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In reply to the discussion: 'Victim of religious bigotry': Tulsi Gabbard, 1st Hindu-American to run for US president [View all]VOX
(22,976 posts)Gabbard has drawn praise from Steve Bannon, David Duke, Richard Spencer, & Tucker Carlson. Why? She is thoroughly unqualified ideologically to be a serious Democratic candidate for any office.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-conservative-media-and-the-far-right-love-tulsi-gabbard-for-president
Why Conservative Media and the Far Right Love Tulsi Gabbard for President
Maxwell Tani, Kelly Weill
The Daily Beast, 01.15.19
The latest Democratic candidate to enter the 2020 race has an unexpected base of support: The far right and conservative media.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), who announced her candidacy last Friday, has cultivated a fandom among the right by bashing fellow Democrats and espousing views that break with the party line.
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Since announcing her bid for the presidency, Gabbard has faced a torrent of criticism for some of her more eccentric politics, zeroing in on her equivocations on Assad and her past homophobic comments. And, in the process, she has earned one prominent defender: Tucker Carlson...the Fox News host argued that Gabbard had been unfairly maligned because of her deep skepticism about intervention in Syria and willingness to talk to Assad.
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Gabbard first became an in-demand Fox News guest in 2015 after she criticized Barack Obamas unwillingness to use the label radical Islamic terrorism. Her media tour explaining that position earned her positively-tilted coverage in right-wing outlets like Breitbart and The Daily Callera trend that continued when she later expressed skepticism of Obamas Iran nuclear deal.
One person with direct knowledge told The Daily Beast that in the wake of her Obama criticism of Obama, Gabbard became an increasingly requested guest for Fox News hosts and producers to appear on-air. They werent the only ones in television news who took notice: senior executives at Sinclair Broadcasting made appeals for Gabbard to appear on their networks after she rebuked Obama.
And her emergence as a left-wing Obama critic further put Gabbard on the map in conservative media.
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Steve Bannon, Trumps former White House chief strategist, reportedly admired Gabbards foreign policy, and arranged a meeting with her and Trump shortly after his election. Bannon was reportedly considering Gabbard for an administration role, although no such job ever materialized.
He loves Tulsi Gabbard. Loves her, a person close to Bannon told The Hill at the time. Wants to work with her on everything. The person added that Gabbard would fit perfectly too [inside the administration]
She gets the foreign policy stuff, the Islamic terrorism stuff.
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Richard Spencer, a white nationalist and alleged domestic abuser who has called for peaceful ethnic cleansing, has tweeted multiple times in support of Gabbard. David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader and current racist, has also heaped praise upon her.
Tulsi Gabbard is brave and the kind of person we need in the diplomatic corps, Spencer tweeted in January 2017. Tulsi Gabbard 2020, he tweeted later that year.
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