Thread by @mtracey

Tulsi is suspending her campaign

- She always said she'd support the eventual Dem nominee (even though many refused to believe her) and the nominee is going to be Biden. The primary is functionally over

- Due to coronavirus crisis she must prepare to activate as National Guard

Tulsi said earlier this week, rightly, that primaries should no longer be held due to the public health threat. She therefore could not in good conscience continue actively campaigning. There's a huge amount of emergency work for her to do in Congress and potentially the military

Tulsi previously said that she would continue all the way to the convention, and her campaign was set up to do that. But obviously the coronavirus crisis changed her calculus, just as it has for a huge variety of other aspects of American life

This is not an unequivocal, uncritical endorsement of Biden. It's a fulfillment of her longstanding pledge to support the ultimate Dem nominee. Despite widespread ascriptions of malicious intent, she was never running third party or a stealth Trump backer. She opposes Trump

I'm not happy about Joe Biden being the Democratic nominee. Neither is she. Biden's record is terrible in countless respects. The systemic failures which led to Biden being in a position to secure the nomination will have to be examined for months and years to come

I know many Tulsi supporters will be upset by her decision. But again: she always said she was going to do this. A horrible confluence of circumstances, principally the pandemic, simply accelerated the decision to earlier than originally planned

Tulsi ran a principled, courageous campaign despite shockingly malign treatment from the media & other Dems. (Both Biden AND Bernie could have defended her much more, but didn't.) One key motive for her campaign was a desire to defeat Trump, who she believes is dangerously unfit

Honestly, I will never forgive the despicable way she was treated, how she was condescended to and dismissed, portrayed as an evil foreign agent, and so on. She was always a Democrat! That's just the reality. And so she's supporting the Dem nominee, despite strong reservations

The reason I'm not shocked by Tulsi's decision is because this is what she said she was going to do from the beginning. Rather than simply listen to what she was saying, her detractors spun wild theories and made her into a hate object (Some supporters didn't believe her, either)

If you want to have a laugh at me for something that I said months ago was going to happen, OK

My reality-based preference was for Bernie to be the nominee and pick Tulsi as VP, and that's not happening. I'm sad at how the primary turned out, and I'm sad that we're in a pandemic

Oh and by the way, don't expect her to lecture, scold, or berate her supporters into voting for Biden. She respects the independent-mindedness of her supporters, and won't be playing the EVERYONE MUST FALL IN LINE OR ELSE YOU ARE EVIL game

Many pundits are bewildered by her decision because their depiction of her motivations was false from the start. They bought their own propaganda that she was a right-wing plant, backed by Russia, who was hell-bent on destroying the Democratic Party from within. It was never true

Will these pundits admit they were wrong? Of course not. As usual, they will just proceed full steam ahead as though nothing ever happened. They'll pay no reputational price whatsoever. And then they'll be shocked when their future predictions turn out to be embarrassingly wrong

Of course @michaelbd is being facetious here. But there’s grand irony in that the spurious, malevolent charges constantly made against Tulsi by Dem pundits could now just as easily be used against Biden. Of course they won’t be, but it shows how shoddy/cynical the charges were

I mean, in a way I enjoy this tweet purely because liberal pundits who convinced themselves that Tulsi was an evil Trump-supporting Russian-backed infiltrator will have no idea how to process it

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1240675649968168960

As much as so many people on here would love me to be MAD ONLINE and feel BETRAYED by Tulsi... I don't. Because this is what she always said she would do. I'm sad, but what I'm sad about is the overall state of the country and world. Not about Tulsi per se. Don't believe me? OK

As for VP speculation: please get real. Do you think the establishment Dem lawyers vetting a VP pick for Biden are going to rally around someone who supported Assange, sued Hillary, condemned the Dem Party as fundamentally corrupt, denounced Russiagate, etc. Come on.

Last thing I'll add is that Tulsi's contributions were and are enormously important. Only candidate who:

- Rebuked FBI/CIA overreach, Russian collusion hysteria, New Cold War
- Recognized insanity of impeachment
- Defended Bernie when it counted

etc.

This doesn't change that

OK, I lied. One last thing. Tulsi's political critique got progressively sharp and incisive over the course of the campaign. On everything from Israel/Palestine, the depravity of sanctions, identity politics garbage, and more. I expect that to continue. If not, I'll let you know