Tulsi Gabbard is back in the news.

Gabbard, the former Hawaii Congresswoman who ran for president in 2020 as a moderate Democrat, was excommunicated from her party over her ideological deviations from the far-left’s agenda.

Gabbard, who is no conservative by most standards, developed a real following among independent thinkers, placing her in the same category as Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, and other liberals who refused to buy into the agenda of the transnational elite. They exist in a political no-man’s-land but not an intellectual one. It’s hard to think of whom they could possibly vote for these days, but they have a substantial audience of moderates and intellectually-minded conservatives and liberals who are eager to hear their point of view.

I count myself among them. You should, too. I even read Glenn Greenwald’s screeds against Israel, despite disagreeing with nearly every word, because I trust his basic good faith intellectually if not always his good sense.

Gabbard is partnering up with Twitter/X in what appears to be a media venture, and it should prove to be interesting.

Freedom of speech is a fundamental right in America. Sadly we live in a time where debate, dialogue and dissent can be cause for cancellation and censorship by those in power. To defend free speech, we must use it. I’m announcing a new partnership today with X where under… pic.twitter.com/yGJRliGndq

— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) January 9, 2024

Details, so far, are scarce, but it sounds to me like a variation of what Salena Zito does, only in video. This could be an entirely wrong guess based on my idiosyncratic categorization of Gabbard, so I’m looking forward to hearing more details as they come up.

Twitter/X was eager to bring Gabbard on board and simultaneously announced the partnership. They also announced similar partnerships with Don Lemon, late of CNN, and Jim Rome, a sports broadcaster.

.@TulsiGabbard — welcome to the family!!! https://t.co/Xts7FykyMQ

— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayaX) January 9, 2024

As many people have pointed out, Twitter has yet to find its free speech groove. While far, far better than the ante-Elon era, there are still incidents where speech is throttled for one reason or another. People can gang up to report others as hatemongers and get people temporarily throttled, and random glitches still happen as well.

There are plenty of reasons for the failure of Twitter to entirely live up to Elon’s vision: campaigns to demonetize Twitter, foreign governments using speech laws to bully Twitter, and, of course, an algorithm that is still embedded in the millions of lines of code that has yet to be fully rooted out.

Some of these things will get fixed over time; some may never be. But overall, Twitter is the best we have as a free speech platform, and I believe the commitment to keep it so is genuine.

Musk has paid an enormous price in time, treasure, reputation, and increased regulation to free Twitter as best he can. It is easy to underestimate how oppressive the government and the Big Tech pressure can be. Revenue has been gutted, legal threats from European governments have been difficult to fight, and attempts to game the system by organized left-wing gangs have been effective at times.

Don Lemon calls X "the biggest space for free speech in the world" as he, Tulsi Gabbard, and Jim Rome launch exclusive shows on the platformhttps://t.co/e75iG7mt1yhttps://t.co/e75iG7mt1y

— Not the Bee (@Not_the_Bee) January 9, 2024

Twitter is the best social media platform for free speech that can still reach a large audience. However flawed it is still, it is on our side of the battle for intellectual freedom. If I had my druthers everybody would be welcome, including the worst people on all sides of all issues, unless they are organizing to violate the law. But that is a pipe dream right now.

I am glad to see that the fight continues and that Gabbard has joined the battle. She is smart, articulate, and appealing.

I wish her well.

Exciting! https://t.co/vupp1vgUlJ

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 9, 2024