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Tulsi Gabbard had to know she was on friendly turf last week at the Bankhead Theater when she was greeted with a standing ovation when introduced. It was even louder and broader after her 50-minute presentation.
Gabbard, a former congresswoman from Hawaii and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, kicked off the Dublin Chamber of Commerce’s speaker series in its role as convener. Gabbard said it took chamber President/CEO Inge Houston 18 months before schedules aligned for the June 18 appearance.
Her speech, likely a “stump speech” she will be delivering across the country for the next several months, centered on how broken Washington, D.C. and many levels of government are and the need for citizens to reclaim their republic.
Perhaps her biggest warning reflected her campaign platform in 2020, hawkish against terrorists and very reluctant to become involved in foreign wars. Responding to a question about the Biden Administration’s foreign policy, she said that it’s driving Russia, China and Iran closer together and moving the world into another Cold War with the threat of intentional or unintentional nuclear war closer than ever.
She cited former President Ronald Reagan saying a nuclear war could never be won and never should be fought. Reagan hated nuclear weapons and wanted the world to be free of them. She recommended watching a recent YouTube commercial from New York City that almost treated a nuclear exchange blithely — much like those of us who grew up in the 1950s and ’60s remember drills of getting under our desks in the case of attack.
Gabbard said she understood why many people are checking out amid the toxic and bitterly divided politics. That said, she argued we cannot afford to.
She decried the failure of the U.S. Department of Education and the education establishment across the country, noting that the functional illiteracy among high school students is higher than it’s ever been in her lifetime. Add in that 30%-40% of Gen Z say they’re not proud to be Americans.
Throw in how the Biden Administration is perverting Title IX so it will demand that transgender men be able to compete with women, completely undoing more than 50 years of progress for women in athletics and education. There are more women enrolled in higher education today than men.
She said it amounted to denial of the objective truth of biology — male gender and female gender. Government decrees whether this is true or not.
Gabbard opened her talk by describing her years growing up in Hawaii as the fourth of five children who all worked in their parents’ restaurant and were homeschooled. That experience gives her a perspective on small business that many of her former congressional colleagues lack. Her key takeaway from the lives of service that her parents led: be outward facing and serve others.
She finished her education and then enlisted in the Army after 9/11. She’s currently a lieutenant colonel in the Reserves. After she was elected to Congress, being one of two representatives from a tiny state, she asked how to build relationships with colleagues. Go to the gym — advice she readily took working out at 6:30 a.m.
That led to a relationship with a more senior Republican that grew to the point where she was considering breaking with the Democrats and voting for a bill dealing with immigration. He said it was just a messaging bill for his party so she should keep her powder dry.
With just about 15% of her colleagues using the gym, that left the challenge of connecting with the rest. Her solution, her mom’s macadamia nut toffee. She initially asked her mom for 424 small boxes and was told yes. Then came the second ask: She needed larger boxes for the staff of each person. Mom agreed, and she said that she would be stirring two big pots of toffee with her dad standing by for the final taste to approve them. She hand-wrote a note to each member to accompany the toffee.
Getting attention through food with plenty of attention to detail worked. She said many colleagues found her on the floor to introduce themselves and thank her. That led to her being part of a bipartisan group that worked across the aisle on issues and resulted in legislation specific to Hawaii, which had been proposed before and never moved ahead.
That’s the type of personal and productive relationships she’d like us to build with our leaders.
Editor’s note: Journalist Tim Hunt has written columns on the Tri-Valley community for more than 40 years. He grew up in the valley and lives in Pleasanton. His “Tim Talk” blog appears online at PleasantonWeekly.com.
