AFGE
Representative Tulsi Gabbard, Democrat of Hawaii, has been critical of Trump's relationship with Saudi Arabia, but has taken controversial foreign policy stances herself.
Bernie Sanders recently penned a to-do list in The Washington Post for Democrats taking over the House next year. He called on the new leadership to push for an increase in the minimum wage, universal health care, and “bold action on climate change.” He called for reforms to the American criminal justice system, immigration system, and tax system. He called for infrastructure, education, and Social Security overhauls.
“It is not good enough for Democrats to just be the anti-Trump party,” wrote the Senator, Independent of Vermont.
It was a bold, unapologetically progressive call for Democrats to stand for, not just against, something. There was just one problem with his call-to-arms: At no point did he mention foreign policy.
Democrats have spent two years railing against the reckless approach President Donald Trump has taken to world affairs: his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal; the blind eye he’s turned to Saudi Arabia’s horrific human rights abuses; his unhinged Twitter threats at foreign leaders. But as Democrats have struggled to articulate and unite behind a concrete alternative foreign policy vision, some in the party fear its leaders have mostly ignored the issue—and that the party’s increasingly influential progressive wing has shied away from the debate.
“As a whole, the left doesn’t debate this stuff forcefully enough or clearly enough,” says Bill Curry, a former counselor to President Bill Clinton. “I can’t see that we’ve offered any alternative at all to Trump, let alone one that’s clear.”
Indeed, while peace and international cooperation have always been important issues for progressives, rising stars like New York Representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are far better known for their domestic agenda. The incoming progressive representative, for example, has offered passionate, compelling arguments on a range of issues here at home, from education to health care to living wages, but has not seemed to make her foreign policy platform a major part of her agenda.
And when she and other progressives weigh in on international affairs and national security, they often reveal what appears to be major unresolved schisms between themselves and the Democratic foreign policy establishment, which remains interventionist and downright hawkish on a number of international issues.
“The generation that got us into the War in Iraq will be seen as a failed generation when it comes to foreign policy,” California Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat and a progressive on the House Armed Services Committee, tells The Progressive. “America needs to have greater restraint in its interventionism.”
Some progressives who have expressed skepticism about U.S. military intervention have promoted what Khanna calls a “foreign policy populism consistent with our economic populism.” Which is to say that the United States should concentrate the majority of its resources at home, while working to strengthen international institutions and using its soft power—its cultural and scientific influence, for instance—in its global leadership.
One Democrat backed by Bernie Sanders who has emerged as a prominent voice on foreign policy is Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard, a member of both the Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees in the House.
“Hey @realdonaldtrump: being Saudi Arabia’s bitch is not ‘America First,’” she tweeted at Trump after his lack of condemnation for Saudi Arabia following American journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s death, presumed to have been ordered by crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.
“I can’t see that we’ve offered any alternative at all to Trump, let alone one that’s clear.”
“As a veteran, I’ve seen firsthand the cost of war and who pays the price,” Gabbard tells The Progressive in an email. “These unnecessary wars of choice have proven to be extremely costly—in human lives and in American taxpayer dollars—undermining our own national security, strengthening terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda, and taking precious resources away from the people in our communities that so desperately need them to pay for things like infrastructure, healthcare, and affordable housing.”
But Gabbard has also taken controversial positions that highlight the party’s internal fracture over foreign policy issues. In 2017, she raised eyebrows by meeting with Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad, and has been accused of echoing his talking points. She has also drawn scrutiny for voting in favor of limiting refugees from Syria and Iraq following a 2015 terrorist attack in Paris; then-President Barack Obama had vowed to veto the measure, but the bill never made it out of the Senate.
Most Americans have a progressive view of foreign policy, according to Stephen Miles, director of Win Without War, a progressive foreign policy program at the Center for International Policy. They believe America needs a more diplomatic, solutions-oriented approach to foreign affairs, rather than a militaristic approach.
But progressives “need to get better” at articulating alternatives, he says. “We need new, creative solutions to these issues.”
What’s more, Miles adds, progressive Democrats now have an opportunity to reclaim the issue in a way that resolves the longstanding divides within the party.
“We largely haven’t had a debate on this in the Democratic party since the 2008 election,” Miles says, “and that’s left us worse off.”
But so far, some in the party say, those conversations are still not happening—and Democrats have failed to arrive at a clear alternative to Trump’s disastrous foreign policy.
“One of the left’s bad habits is ducking national security or foreign affairs issues, or simply ignoring them,” Curry says. “We’ve had so much less debate among progressives on this topic than we have on others.
“No one’s really sure what to say.”