I followed Tulsi when she announced her presidential campaign on CNN to Van Jones in January 2019. I was turned off to hear that she was a Bernie Sanders surrogate in 2016, but I was impressed by her foreign policy positions and I like her looking at her (she’s fucking hot). Throughout the years, I’ve noticed that Tulsi forms her views based on different seasons of her life.

Post-Iraq War, she’s consistently been a non-interventionist which was the central theme of her presidential campaign. Her deployment to Iraq motivated her to run for Congress so she could have a national platform to share her experience of being in a war zone. She has been outspoken about the proxy war in Ukraine and has called for a “negotiated outcome” to end the war. Her foreign policy is the main reason why I’m still huge fan of hers today.

When she was a teenager and young adult, she held very conservative positions on abortion and same-sex marriage. She worked for her dad’s gay anti-gay marriage organization that promoted conversion therapy and even successfully protested against same-sex civil unions in the state legislature. However, she cites her military service as the reason she shifted to the left on these issues. She claims to have served alongside LGBTQ service members which is interesting to hear because she enlisted when “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” was still in effect. She had to apologize for her anti-LGBT past in the early days of her 2020 presidential campaign and even touted a 100% legislative rating from the Human Rights Campaign. I don’t think she hates gay people now, but she has railed against the LGBT agenda after suspending her 2020 presidential campaign. She introduced a bill with a Republican to ban biological men from competing in women’s sports. She even spoke at a forum called “Our Bodies, Our Sports” in 2022. Tulsi even said that “Don’t Say Gay” should apply to all grades, not just K-3.

The political right has eviscerated Tulsi Gabbard for her stance on the 2nd Amendment. They called her “gun grabber” and accused her of being “anti-2A”. These criticisms are not unfounded as she did support an assault weapons ban during her tenure in Congress. She was rightly called out for this when she claimed at the time that she was pro-2A, but supported legislation that would infringe on gun rights. She has slowly become more supportive of gun rights citing the concealed carry law in New Yorn that was struck down by Supreme Court. Tulsi even explained her evolution on this issue with Dave Rubin and Steve Scalise on her own podcast. It’s hard to tell if she has sincerely changed her view on this issue since she’s no longer in Congress.

It seems she has a love-hate relationship with Donald Trump because she wanted to be the Democratic nominee to challenge him to 2020. She called him “Saudi Arabia’s bitch” and said Trump is “unfit” for office. I think she was bitter about not having a Cabinet position in his first term since she mentioned the war hawks who were undermining Trump (Bolton, Pompeo, Haley). She voted “present” on Trump’s first impeachment, and I wonder how she would have voted in the second one. Tulsi has recently endorsed Trump because she knows that Trump would be better than Kamala Harris on foreign policy.

I think Tulsi just voted mostly with the Democrats since she represented a deep blue district in a deep blue state. She played to what her constituency wants which I’m not knocking her for. Her job as a congresswoman was to be the voice for her district, and she did exactly that. I don’t know much about her record in previous offices as a councilwoman and state representative other than her anti-LGBT past. Now that she’s retired from Congress, spends her days as a commentator in conservative media and is now a member of Trump’s transition team, she has taken time to reflect on her views and explore different perspectives. She is no longer handcuffed by her constituents to vote the way they want her to. Tulsi has distanced herself from the left because they treated her like shit. You can’t fault her for talking to people on the right since they’re open to having a conversation with her. I think the incremental exposure to right-wing views and conservative media personalities have shifted her own positions. The insanity of the Biden-Harris administration was the final straw for her to leave the Democratic Party weeks ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.

Some will say she’s a grifter, and they have every right to think that way. I just think she’s a human being who does lot of political introspection. She’s humble enough to realize that she could be wrong on an issue or that she placed herself in a bubble for so long and she’s now free to form her own positions.