The Spellbinding Transformation of Tulsi Gabbard

There’s only so much grist one can get from pointing out over and over again that Tulsi Gabbard has systematically flouted the deeply-held convictions she once claimed to hold. After a while, it starts to get redundant, and a bit too formulaic to even be worth harping on anymore. Yes, we’re aware that she previously made opposition to “regime change” and its offshoots the centerpiece of her presidential campaign, Congressional tenure, and entire existence as a nationally-prominent political figure. We know she used to vehemently denounce the concept of US intervention in Venezuela, Iran, and so forth, but now she’s participating in (and openly supporting) exactly those policies. Still, though: shrieking “hypocrisy” ad nauseam will eventually have diminishing returns. You can fish out all the speeches and tweets you want from several years ago, demonstrating that a particular politician had once purported to believe something diametrically opposite to what they’re doing today. But people already expect inconsistency, or even outright “hypocrisy,” from political figures. By incessantly highlighting examples of this, there’s a sense in which you’re telling people something they’ve already been conditioned to know. Which can get a bit dull. Furthermore, the notion that any politician will maintain perfect consistency across time is often derided as not just unrealistic, but undesirable, since politicians are expected to adapt to changing circumstances, absorb new information, and adjust accordingly. To exhibit “flexibility” in this regard can even be lauded as a virtue. Only a hardened zealot would insist on stubbornly clinging to their erstwhile beliefs for all eternity. Or so the argument might go. In any event, dwelling on a politician’s myriad hypocrisies, no matter how incontrovertible the evidence for them might be, can come across like beating a stale drum.

But there’s something truly novel going on with Tulsi Gabbard. Her transformation is so sensational, and so without any meaningful analog in recent political history, that it uniquely cries out for intense examination, as a phenomenon that has scarcely been observed before in the natural world. Like if one were to discover a flummoxing new fossil or celestial body.

As it happens, there was a period when I covered Tulsi Gabbard more closely than anyone else in the United States. I also got to know her decently well on a personal level. Objectively, no one is better positioned to detail her epic metamorphosis,