Deconstructing Tulsi Gabbard

 

Tulsi Gabbard is a controversial American politician and political commentator whose main claim to fame is probably her 2019-2020 primary election campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. Gabbard destroyed Kamala Harris´ presidential bid before the voting even started, but as we all know, Harris staged a comeback later. Still, it *is* intriguing that Harris´ attempt to become POTUS in her own right was upset by a “fringe” candidate like Gabbard!

Supposedly a progressive leftist, Gabbard veered rather strongly towards the populist right, eventually leaving the Democratic Party altogether in 2022 for unknown pastures. Judging by the presentations linked above, Gabbard may never have been a leftist at all, and perhaps deliberately prettified her past.

It´s been known for a long time that Gabbard had contacts with Hindu nationalists (she even met Modi). Her Hindu beliefs are derived from a breakaway group from the Hare Krishna movement, known as Science of Identity. Both her parents (not just her mother) are members of Science of Identity, and so is Gabbard herself. The group is based on Hawaii, where the Gabbards live. The founder-leader of this group, Chris Butler, is a really raving homophobe. So is Mark Gabbard, Tulsi´s father, who claims to be a Catholic but is actually a member of Butler´s organization. While it´s not super-secret that Gabbard is somehow connected to Butler´s people, she has tried to downplay both the connection and essentially denied her guru´s homophobia.

The narrator of the videos linked above is a Canadian counter-cultist with somewhat eclectic spiritual beliefs, Henri Jolicoeur. As a very young man, Jolicoeur was a member of the Hare Krishna movement (the ISKCON) and worked closely with none other than Shrila Prabhupada himself. Indeed, he was tasked with spying on Chris Butler´s ISKCON temple in Hawaii! It seems Butler was creating his very own, shall we say, cult following already back then. Yes, Jolicoeur regards Science of Identity as a dangerous cult, prompting Butler´s lawyers to sue him for libel in both Hawaii and Quebec as a result (the present status of the lawsuit is unclear to me). 

The videos are interesting, not just for what they may reveal about Gabbard or Butler, but also due to the narrator´s reminiscences. Judging by other uploads on his channel, Jolicouer knows all of the ISKCON “fallen gurus” who took over the Hare Krishna after Prabhupada´s death…and he despises all of them (or almost all). There is some other interesting info of a counter-cultist nature on the channel too, so stay tuned for more links!

As for Tulsi Gabbard, she did have an intriguing ability to politically attract a rather motley crew of people. Among people who had positive things to say about her were Alt Right cyber-demon and citizen´s reporter Mike Cernovich, pro-populist leftist Jimmy Dore and perennial kind-of-liberal gadfly Michael Tracey (who even endorsed her for president). I was interested in her politics, too, but things change and so on.

Presented her for all it may be worth.