Tulsi Gabbard criticized her Democratic presidential rivals for speaking Spanish in presidential debates and warned that identity politics is “a real danger.”
“Identity politics that are being used, again, to further divide us, to further drive separations between us, and purely for selfish political gain, is a real danger,” the Hawaii congresswoman, 38, said during a “Rubin Report” podcast interview on Sunday. “It undermines that unity that we have that doesn’t come with groupthink or saying, ‘Well hey, we’re all exactly the same, we think the same way,’ not at all.”
Gabbard, lagging in the Democratic presidential field in the low single digits.
“It’s that unity that we have in recognizing our diversity and our strength and who we are as Americans and the principles and freedoms that make up the bedrock of our country,” she said.
Gabbard’s comment came after host Dave Rubin said that he saw the candidates speaking Spanish during the first debate as the “perfect example” of identity politics, which he called “the most dangerous force in American politics today” and “the reverse of what the American Dream was founded on.”
“I agree with that,” Gabbard said.
Gabbard recalled a Central American woman she met at an Independence Day parade in New Hampshire shortly after the June debate who asked Gabbard to not speak Spanish during a debate. “She found that to be so patronizing, and blatantly so,” Gabbard said.
Gabbard also discussed how she does not fit completely into any ideological movement like progressive or moderate.
“One of the challenges that people in Washington have had with me from the very beginning is I don’t fit cleanly in any one of those categories or those labels,” Gabbard said.
