With every day that draws closer to the midterm elections, the big question was whether there would be an October surprise and, if so, what that surprise would be.  We assumed it would come from the Democrats and either be a sleazy attack on candidates or an announced Armageddon (nuclear war, a new virus, a Jan. 6 revolution) that would justify shutting down the election.  Instead, the October surprise was that Tulsi Gabbard not only quit the Democrat party, but explicitly stated that she did so because the party has become so awful and anti-American that she can no longer remain.

Tulsi was one of the more interesting presidential candidates in the 2020 Democrat primary race.  An Army reserve officer and congresswoman from Hawaii, despite having standard leftist views about such things as climate change and socialized medicine, she refused to march in lockstep with the other Democrats.  Since then, she frequently appeared on Tucker Carlson's show with conservative views about national security, race, the border, and LGBTQ+++ issues.  That's why it was no surprise when, this morning, Tulsi officially left the Democrat party.  She's not a conservative, but she's had it with the Democrats' madness.

Tulsi made her announcement via Twitter and YouTube.  On Twitter, she posted an abbreviated version (one minute and nineteen seconds) of the longer video that appears on YouTube (28 minutes and 33 seconds).  What's clear watching these videos is that Tulsi didn't go out with a whimper.  She went out with an explosive bang.

In the shorter Twitter video, Tulsi lambastes the Democrat party for its use of race to divide America, anti-White stances, anti-freedom agenda, hostility to faith, anti-police and pro-criminal policies, open borders, weaponized federal agencies to target political opponents, and bizarre push to nuclear war.  Along the way, she notes that the Democrats no longer stand for the ordinary American but are, instead, a cabal of elites that governs for its own benefit.  She urges other Democrats who are disaffected from the party to leave it now.

…hostile to people of faith & spirituality, demonize the police & protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans, believe in open borders, weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents, and above all, dragging us ever closer to nuclear war.

— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) October 11, 2022

…in leaving the Democratic Party. If you can no longer stomach the direction that so-called woke Democratic Party ideologues are taking our country, I invite you to join me.

— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) October 11, 2022

The YouTube version of her farewell speech also marks Tulsi's first installment in a new video podcast called, simply, The Tulsi Gabbard Show.  In it, she introduces the facts that support the conclusions in the shorter Twitter video.  It's powerful:

I wish Tulsi tremendous success as she embarks on this new phase in her career as an articulate spokesman for the values in which she believes.  I hope, too, that as she moves ever farther from the Democrats, she also rethinks her stance on socialized medicine and comes to recognize that climate change is not about saving the Earth from human depredations but is, simply, about reallocating wealth and power to a small cabal of individuals in the world's Western countries (something that cabal freely admits via its World Economic Forum plans).  She's a formidable, articulate woman, and it would be nice to have her entirely on the side of conservatism rather than halfway there.

Image: Tulsi Gabbard.  YouTube screen grab.