Tulsi Gabbard to Speak at CPAC, Joining Its ‘Great Un-Wokening’ (original) (raw)

Gabbard, who ran for president as a Democrat in 2020, once called Trump "unfit to serve." Now she's building buzz for the 45th president along with Marjorie Taylor Greene

Tulsi Gabbard, the former Hawaii congresswoman who sought the 2020 Democratic nomination for president, is completing her metamorphosis from iconoclast progressive to hardcore conservative by appearing as a featured guest at the Trumpy love-in known as the Conservative Political Action Conference.

CPAC 2022 begins Wednesday in Orlando, where Gabbard will join a roster of GOP loyalists — including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Republican senators Ted Cruz, Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, and Representatives Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, Lauren Boebert, Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene — in building buzz for the star of the circus, former President Donald Trump.

According to the conference agenda, Gabbard will appear at the Friday night “Ronald Reagan Dinner,” where the keynote speaker is the former Fox News star conspiracy theorist Glenn Beck.

CONFIRMED: @TulsiGabbard pic.twitter.com/JqaL0byn8U

— Matt Schlapp (@mschlapp) February 21, 2022

Less than two years ago, Gabbard, a former vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee, sought to lead that party’s ticket to defeat Trump, whom she blasted as “unfit to serve.” A veteran of the Iraq War, Gabbard ran on a platform for peace, pledging to end regime-change wars to invest, instead, in single-payer healthcare and “a 100 percent renewable energy economy,” decrying the Trump administration for putting the interests of the fossil-fuel industry above the planet.

Gabbard launched her 2020 campaign with an apology for her past anti-LGBTQ views and closed it with a robust endorsement of Joe Biden for president, speaking to her affection for his late son Beau. “I am confident that he will lead our country, guided by the spirit of aloha,” Gabbard said of Joe Biden in March 2020, adding her confidence that Biden would “heal the division that has been tearing our country apart.”

But since leaving Congress, Gabbard has lurched hard to the right. She’s becoming a fixture on Fox News, while recently blasting the Biden administration in terms that would make even some Republicans blanch:

Biden chose Harris as his VP because of the color of her skin and sex—not qualification. She's been a disaster. Now he promises to choose Supreme Court nominee on the same criteria. Identity politics is destroying our country.

— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) January 31, 2022

Gabbard has lately insisted that Ukraine is not worth protecting because it “isn’t actually a democracy,” and defended the pandemic-disinformation-spouting podcaster Joe Rogan against the “zealots of wokeism,” whom she claimed seek to “censor voices who do not agree with theirs.”

In this regard, Gabbard will find easy company at CPAC which is being touted by Chairman Matt Schlapp as an expression and celebration of America’s “great Un-Wokening.”

Launched in 1974, CPAC bills itself as the “most influential gathering of conservatives in the world.” Accordingly, the 2022 conference will feature speeches by noted movement intellectuals including James O’Keefe, Charlie Kirk, Alex Berenson, Kimbery Guilfoyle, Papa John and Dr. Oz.

A sampling of the speech titles include:

The conference, which should make us all proud to be Americans, wraps up Sunday afternoon with a closing speech by Donald Trump, Jr., and a special live performance by Lee Greenwood.