Samoa-born Tulsi
Gabbard, 31, is a decorated Iraq veteran and martial arts instructor; she
achieved a singular distinction for a female warfighter, becoming primary
trainer for the ultra-conservative Kuwaiti national guard. She got a business
degree and was elected to the Hawaiian legislature at 21, the youngest ever in
the nation. She was just elected to the House of Representatives as a Democrat,
81 percent to 19. She won by 62 points.
She’s got some serious
game.
She is everything
Republicans hate: she supports choice for women on abortion and contraception,
and same-sex marriage. Unsurprisingly she supports women in combat and works to
stop the big banks from foreclosing on deployed troops. And she’s a woman in
power, a woman who intensely dislikes bullies; while she was accomplishing all
this in her very short life, she also defeated a phone stalker.
And when she was sworn
into office, she was sworn in on the Hindu holy book, the Gita, not the Bible.
Because she is a devout Hindu.
Remember that five years
ago the conservative media went totally crazy when Muslim Congressman Keith
Ellison reenacted his oath of office using a Muslim Qur’an, and oddly no
sensible person ever asked why a Muslim would ever swear on a Bible. The same
year, when a Hindu prayer was said on the Senate floor, rightwing protesters
interrupted from the visitors’ balcony, and other conservatives condemned the
prayer. It violates the Constitution, the Founding Fathers never would have
approved, they don’t believe what we believe, blah blah blah.
Personally, I thought
Gabbard should have totally messed with their heads, drove the wingnuts nuts.
She should have stripped naked, ululated in Hindi, sacrificed a goat on the
House dais, set it on fire, and then gave John Boehner the heart of the goat to
eat. Make sure Fox News has their cameras rolling. And then just show up in her
red power suit and pearls the next day, like nothing happened. Then she would
get get Fluked by Rush Limbaugh and carpet-bombed with The Crazy by the loony
right. Three more choruses of “The Death of Traditional America”. OMG this
snake-charming slut from the banks of the Barah-maputra! White Christians, look
to your muskets! Alas, she let that pitch go by.
But I really hope the
Republicans alienate the Hindus in America. All two million of them. Two of the
largest concentrations of Hindu worship are in states the Republicans
absolutely must retain, if they are to avoid the terrible doom of the Whigs:
Florida and Texas.
