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It is easy to dismiss Hawaii’s former congressional Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as a shape-shifter who keeps changing her political views to get ahead.

But if Gabbard has been motivated for decades by self-interest, why hasn’t she gained more traction in any political party? Why does she continue to stumble one step behind the zeitgeist? Why does she usually end up on the fringes?

With the , I would like to offer a more charitable view of Gabbard, not as a gadfly but rather as a person searching for a political home to give her the clout and credibility she craves.

In Pidgin, also known as Hawaii Creole English, nothing is gained from “talking stink,” especially when Gabbard “stay trying” — meaning trying to get ahead — but in her case, often hitting dead ends instead of home runs.

She clearly is looking for more clout than her recent appearances as a contributor on Fox News and a podcaster headlining “.”

Fellow Civil Beat columnist Neal Milner suggested this alternative view to me in a phone conversation this week.

I agree with Neal that viewing Tulsi as on a quest is an interesting way to make sense of why she has embraced but then abandoned so many divergent political views. She is politically homeless yet looking for a hearth.

Local people in Hawaii might say, “She nevah find her ikigai.” Ikigai is a Japanese word, meaning that also helps others, finding a satisfying job that makes you want to get up in the morning.

“Ass why hard!“ as they say in Pidgin, meaning it isnʻt easy. A person who stay trying to make it on the big stage must be prepared for many setbacks.

Milner says Gabbard has been on a rocky road for a long time mainly because of her inability to form alliances beyond her relatively small base of dedicated followers.

If you want to be a somebody as in Pidgin “Eh, you somebody,” you need allies.

And seeking support in the snake pit of former President Donald Trumpʻs election campaign may be one of the riskiest moves Gabbard has made yet on her search for a home.

Trump helps himself, not others. He is famous for throwing his sycophants under the bus if they fail to walk in lockstep with his whims. Gabbard with her iconoclastic temperament might sooner or later provoke his rage.

That is unless she has given up and lost her independent spark. Watching her interviews on Fox News in recent years makes me sad.

Often, she seems to be reading off a list of MAGA talking points rather than expressing her own beliefs. But thatʻs her job, especially now as a Trump surrogate.

Endorsing Trump

Gabbard on Aug. 26 announced her endorsement for Trump in Detroit at a gathering of the National Guard Association of the United States to commemorate the anniversary of the 2021 during the Afghanistan withdrawal.

Earlier that day, Gabbard accompanied Trump on his heavily criticized visit to lay wreaths at Arlington National Cemetery for three troops killed in the withdrawal. A campaign photographer took unauthorized photos in a sensitive part of the cemetery — during which the Army says Trumpʻs group physically  who was trying to stop the filming.

Trump guys “make ass big time!” and they never apologized. In Pidgin, “They stay no mo shame.”

The Army issued the Trump campaign for violating the cemetery rules that prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds.

Gabbard, a National Guard veteran who served in Iraq, says Trump respects the military and would make a great commander in chief. She may have forgotten the many times he has .

A day after receiving her endorsement, Trump announced that Gabbard was joining his campaign as an along with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

That’s the same outlier Kennedy who has talked about and how he left a dead bear in New York’s Central Park as a joke. And his he once chainsawed off the head of a dead whale and drove the head strapped to the top of the family minivan home to Mt. Kisco, New York. In Pidgin, thatʻs “uji” super uji meaning, ahhh, creepy, strange, uji.

Suffice to say Kennedy’s behavior is “hammajang,”  meaning all messed up and move on. This column is not about him.

Political Path

Back to Gabbard, whose father is state Sen. Mike Gabbard. Since she was a child educated in a Hare Krishna offshoot called The Science of Identity Foundation, her life has taken a path of many twists and turns.

She supported her dad’s . However, when she successfully ran as a Democrat for a state House seat she changed course to become supportive of gay rights.

She went on to become a member of the nonpartisan Honolulu City Council and deployed with the Hawaii Army National Guard to Iraq and Kuwait before heading to Washington as a representative for Hawaiiʻs 2nd Congressional District.

As a rising star in the Democratic Party, she began to alienate party leaders when she criticized then-President Barack Obamaʻs Syria policy and his other foreign policy initiatives.

In 2016, she left her position as vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee to help self-proclaimed in his presidential bid.

She said she backed Sanders because she believed as commander in chief he would keep the U.S. out of “interventionist wars of regime change.”

Then for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 before leaving the Democratic Party in 2022, denouncing it as “an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness.”

She declared herself an independent but quickly hit the road to campaign for ultra-conservative election deniers such as Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.

Now she has come full circle to sign on as a true-blue MAGA supporter.

This is an abrupt turn from her time as a Democratic congresswoman when “corrupt” and “unfit to serve our country as president.” 

If Trump loses, Gabbard may have closed yet another door behind her. Even if he wins, with his mercurial unpredictable mood swings, there is no guarantee he will offer the political home she seeks.

She will be forced, as they say in Pidgin to “suck wind.”