This year’s Democratic National Convention was stretched across four days, and the event’s digital format allowed for a wide range of speakers not previously possible. There was a wide range of voices, including most of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s former 2020 rivals, standard Democratic establishment figures, progressives, Republicans who back Biden, state legislators, and individual voters. But one of the most notable omissions from the lineup was 2020 Democratic candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.
Traditionally, presidential candidates who earn delegates are invited to speak at the convention in some capacity. But even though Gabbard won two delegates in the American Samoa primary, she was not included in the event. The Democrats snubbed her even as they included less successful ex-candidates who won zero delegates, such as Beto O’Rourke and Andrew Yang.
You’re correct – I was not invited to participate in any way. https://t.co/zQBOQB8Zw7
— Tulsi Gabbard ? (@TulsiGabbard) August 20, 2020
Many critics quickly noted this glaring discrepancy:
The DNC claimed to be celebrating “women” tonight but totally ignored the first female combat veteran ever to run for president, the first Hindu ever elected to Congress, and the youngest woman ever elected to a state legislature. Weird
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) August 20, 2020
Yes, this is yet another example of the Democratic establishment treating heterodox members of the party such as Gabbard with disdain. But more importantly, the Hawaii congresswoman’s snub reveals several key insights into the mentality of Biden and Kamala Harris’s ticket.
For one, we can’t overlook the fact that the Democrats snubbed Gabbard, a staunch anti-interventionist who largely focuses on foreign policy, while including foreign policy hawks and regime-change war advocates such as Colin Powell and John Kerry. This indicates that the Biden-Harris campaign, as left-wing as it may be on other issues, seems likely to stick to the same failed hawkish approach to foreign policy that Biden has demonstrated throughout his career.
The takeaway? If Biden wins, expect more debacles such as the failed Obama-era regime-change military intervention that turned Libya into a failed state. Oh, and don’t expect our troops to come home from the decadeslong failed War in Afghanistan under a President Biden.
Another conclusion we can draw from the Democrats’ treatment of Gabbard is that Harris may already be calling the shots. Critics have long predicted that the relatively more centrist Biden’s advanced age and allegedly declining mental capacity mean that his more-radical vice president will really run the show. The Gabbard snub supports this conclusion.
Biden himself has no particular reason to dislike Gabbard or snub her. In fact, Gabbard surprised many political analysts by endorsing Biden (not Bernie Sanders, who she endorsed in 2016) when she dropped out of the 2020 race.
Harris, however, was humiliated by Gabbard on stage in front of 10 million people. At the second presidential debate, Gabbard took Harris to task for her awful record on criminal justice as a California prosecutor in a clip that quickly went viral.
With this context in mind, it’s safe to guess that Gabbard’s exclusion comes at the influence of Harris and her supporters. If Biden wins in November, don’t be surprised if Harris has massive influence behind the scenes.
Of course, being denied a speaking gig at one event is hardly the end of the world. But for the Democrats to exclude an impressive candidate such as Gabbard despite her progressive credentials, record of military service, and transpartisan appeal shows that, first and foremost, Democrats still value loyalty to the establishment above all else.
Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a freelance journalist and Washington Examiner contributor.
