Former Democrat Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard Leaving Party

Democratic presidential hopeful Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) speaks during the fourth Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential campaign season at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, on Oct. 15, 2019. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) announced on Oct. 11 that she’s leaving the Democrat Party.

In two videos, Gabbard said the move is driven in part by President Joe Biden and his administration not responding after activists started protesting outside the homes of Supreme Court justices before and after the court struck down Roe v. Wade.

Federal law prohibits protesting outside the homes of judges with the intent to influence them, which is what many of the protesters have said is their intent.

Gabbard compared that treatment with how the administration has been arresting pro-life activists for alleged violations of another law.

“When the party in power does not believe in the rule of law but they’re responsible for writing and enforcing laws, our democracy is doomed,” Gabbard said. “Today’s Democratic Party does not believe in our constitutionally protected right to free speech.”

Gabbard, 41, represented Hawaii in Congress from 2013 to 2021, when she chose to run for president instead of reelection. Gabbard endorsed Joe Biden after dropping out of the race.

Gabbard has been increasingly critical of what she sees as growing extremism among Democrats on topics like education, gender, and war. Her platform included vowing not to involve the United States in “forever wars” and to withdraw the country from Afghanistan.

“I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party. It’s now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue and stoking anti-white racism, who actively worked to undermine our God-given freedoms enshrined in our Constitution, and who are hostile to people of faith and spirituality, who demonize the police who protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans who believe in open borders, who weaponize the national security state to go after their political opponents, and above all, are dragging us ever closer to nuclear war,” Gabbard said in one of the videos.

Gabbard did not say whether she would join the Republican Party or alternatives such as the Forward Party, which 2020 Democrat candidate Andrew Yang helped form. A query sent to the former congresswoman was not immediately returned.

But Gabbard did call on other Democrats to join her in departing the party.

“Today, I’m calling on my fellow common sense independent-minded Democrats to join me in taking action. Join me in leaving the Democratic Party,” she said. “If you can no longer stomach the direction that the so-called woke Democratic Party ideologues are taking this country, I invite you to join me.”