When the six qualifying Democratic candidates take the stage at the CNN presidential debate, there will be several glaring omissions. The cast of Tom Steyer, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar will lack some of the field’s most iconic figures, such as Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang. In particular, by not having Gabbard on stage, we’ll be missing quite a lot.
1. This entire debate might go on without anyone pledging to end “failed regime-change wars,” a refrain Gabbard has popularized on the campaign trail thus far. Her saying it in every answer is a bit of a meme at this point, but it’s also of crucial importance. In a time when we have troops engaged in nearly 150 countries and have spent trillions of dollars and lost thousands of lives in failed Middle East wars, it’s a message too crucial to overlook.
2. Gabbard’s willingness to buck the party establishment and call out Democrats on their flaws will be missed. From endorsing Sanders over Hillary Clinton in 2016 to taking on Kamala Harris’s draconian criminal justice record, any mealy-mouthed, weak criticisms we see from the candidates will probably not come anywhere close to the truth bombs Gabbard has regularly dropped.
3. No combat veteran will take the stage. Yes, Pete Buttigieg served honorably, but in a noncombat role. Gabbard is the only remaining candidate in the field with combat military experience, and her firsthand experience with the cost of war means her voice will be sorely missed in any foreign policy matters that come up, particularly concerning the burgeoning conflict with Iran.
4. The party of identity politics will feature an all-white field. It’s a bad look for a party that dedicates so much time to virtue-signaling its support for identity politics that the two remaining major candidates from minority backgrounds, Gabbard and Yang, won’t be on stage. Perhaps this result has happened because the liberal media never gave the two outsider, anti-establishment candidates the same glowing coverage as other minority candidates such as Harris.
5. No one will rock the white pantsuit tonight. Gabbard has worn the iconic outfit, to the bizarre scorn of establishment media fashion critics, at each debate and looked absolutely amazing. Without her on stage, the field will surely be lacking in style.
The NYT wrote hundreds of words criticizing Tulsi Gabbard’s debate outfit. https://t.co/VqB1tKsUv0
— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) November 21, 2019
The upside? Maybe Democratic primary viewers, after what will almost certainly be an unsatisfying display from the six qualifying candidates, might look elsewhere just in time for the Iowa caucuses coming up in a few weeks.
