Tulsi Gabbard: Woman in the Arena
By: Mike Deluvia
Tags: Presidential Debates, Politics, America, Democrats

Image by Kelly Bielfeldt — @kellybielfeldt

Being a voter is hard. First you have to decide what direction you think the country should take, which takes a good amount of thought. Then you have to find a candidate who has an authentic vision for the country based on what you direction you came up with. Given our usual slate of candidates and their unwillingness to deal in real vision and authenticity, our task gets even harder.

When faced with this dilemma, I turn to our forefathers for some perspective. The wisdom of the past is a powerful tool for making sense of the present.

Which takes me to Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, Governor of New York, combat veteran, statesman, conservationist, sportsman, boxer, and author. TR certainly has the resume to shed some light on our current candidates. In fact, two quotations from Roosevelt stand out to me as valuable filters for sifting through our current slate of Democratic candidates for president, and only one candidate seems to fit both: Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii.

Vision

First, an admonition regarding foreign policy.

“Speak softly and carry a big stick”

Note Roosevelt did not say “swing a big stick”.

Roosevelt meant to extol the values of diplomacy over violence, knowing diplomacy is better served coming from a place of strength rather than weakness. The emphasis here is that our military should be at the service of our diplomatic efforts, and not the other way around. Military might wielded with restraint enhances our diplomatic efforts. Nobody trusts a bully. Pure strength only used in the rarest of cases is enough to prevent the weak from provocation.

Warfare is also more dangerous now than ever. Nuclear and biological weapons in the hands of many players makes the world very fragile to miscalculation. Other Democratic candidates are focusing their energies on climate change, economic inequality, or racial and sexual discrimination (all worthy causes). The problem is there may not be a climate to save, an economy to improve, or prejudice to combat in the event of nuclear war. That’s why it is crucial we take foreign policy with the utmost seriousness.

Gabbard is the only candidate who’s thinking resembles TR’s: focused on diplomacy and a realistic view of the costs of war. She has made foreign policy the centerpiece of campaign, as seen on Twitter, interviews, campaign speeches, and her voting record. Here are just a few examples:

“I will end long-standing regime change policy & lead with a foreign policy based on negotiations, diplomacy, & cooperation.”

Roosevelt himself was famous for brokering the Treaty of Portsmouth that ended the Russo-Japanese War, winning a Nobel Peace Prize in the the process.

While tensions flare with Iran, Gabbard understands the perils of regime-change wars. Estimates place the costs of our current Middle East wars anywhere between $1.3 to $6 trillion and around 500,000 deaths, and Iran is both larger and more populous than Iraq and Afghanistan. No one can predict what other nations might do either, which is especially dangerous given the several nuclear powers in the region.

Gabbard’s views on war may be better than Roosevelt’s in some respects. She understands the morality of not imposing our will on sovereign nations. Roosevelt presided over an imperialistic war with the Philippines that cost as many as 224,000 lives, something Gabbard would be vehemently opposed to.

Gabbard is not without her detractors. Some try to slam her for meeting with Bashar Al Assad of Syria and refusing to classify him as an “enemy” of the United States on the grounds that she is legitimizing a dictator. I invite the reader to consider a different line of thinking. The civil war in Syria is an extremely complicated issue with many foreign powers involved and millions of lives at stake. Intervention is not so simple. We don’t know who the “good” rebels are or how things will shake out in the aftermath of overthrowing Assad’s regime. Just look to Iraq and Libya as prime examples of what misguided intervention can lead to. Furthermore, U.S. officials from both parties meet with other dictators (i.e. Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Mohammed Bin Salman). I suspect such blatantly hypocritical attacks on Gabbard are more politically motivated than anything.

Gabbard is the only candidate with the sense to keep our ship clear of the storm in Syria. She’s also the only candidate displaying realist honesty. When asked why she met with Assad, Gabbard said:

“…because I think it’s important for us to have the courage to meet with leaders whether they be friends or adversaries, or potential adversaries, if our focus is on national security and on peace.”

In an age where most politicians would never meet with Assad because of the optics, Gabbard proves she’s willing to stare bad men in the eyes and represent the American people in the interests of peace.

Authenticity

We all know politicians spout bullsh*t; they’ve been doing it since TR’s time and long before that. Unfortunately, this tendency can make it difficult for us voters to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Cue Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” speech — an excellent filter for judging character.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Gabbard has lived most of her life in the arena. She was elected to the Hawaii State House of Representatives at 21 years of age, the youngest woman elected to a state legislature in US history. After the terrorist attacks on 9/11, she joined the Army National Guard to answer the call of duty. Gabbard’s brigade was called up for duty in Iraq in 2004 in the midst of her reelection campaign for the Hawaii State House. While her name was not on the mandatory deployment roster, Gabbard volunteered to deploy anyway.

How many politicians you know would give up a win to put their life on the line for our country?

After serving two combat tours in Iraq and Kuwait, Gabbard was elected to the Honolulu city council (shout-out to localism!), followed by her election to represent Hawaii in the US House of Representatives in 2013 where she has served on the Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Committees.

As a final note to her integrity, Gabbard took a risk with her own party in 2016 by resigning from her post as as Vice-Chair of the DNC to endorse Bernie Sanders for President, despite party officials supporting Hillary Clinton for the nomination.

Clearly Gabbard’s experience in the arena informs her preference for diplomacy over violence. She’s said as much in an interview with Politico:

“I served in a war in Iraq — a war that was launched based on lies, and a war that was launched without evidence. And so the American people were duped. So as a soldier, as an American, as a member of Congress, it is my duty and my responsibility to exercise skepticism any time anyone tries to send our service members into harm’s way or use our military to go in and start a new war.”

Don’t mistake her as a coward or one unwilling to use force if necessary; she volunteered to serve overseas in a combat zones. She was willing to use force, but she also understands the true costs of war, a combination of perspective lacking in many of the other candidates and players in the political sphere.

Who do you trust more?

It’s easy for the other Democrats to slam President Trump’s actions on Iran, or past administrations’ mistakes in Afghanistan and Iraq; they’re winning cheap political points.

Many of the candidates have foreign policy views similar to Gabbard’s, but without the same focus nor the willingness to upset the establishment on both sides of the aisle. We’re led to the following question:

Who do you trust more, someone with the right vision, or someone with the right vision and a record of authenticity behind the vision?

I’m not endorsing all of Gabbard’s views, but where in real life do you agree with someone on everything? The important thing is that a candidate has the right vision about the most important issues, and one thing is certain: she is absolutely spot-on with regards to foreign policy, has the record to back it, and our country is better off with Gabbard as a central part of the conversation for which direction our nation will take.

But don’t take my word for it. Take Teddy Roosevelt’s.