Why were there so many bad takes about Tulsi Gabbard?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

As in people predicting that she'd be a serious candidate...or even win the nomination(!) were pretty widespread. Her performance was in every state aside from New Hampshire statistically insignificant, and she frequently ran behind candidates who had already dropped out, and the prediction of this due to all the issues with her were coming out from before she even announced...so why were so many unwilling to accept this?

[One Term Floridian]

It’s because she’s objectively hot. Idk any other reason honestly

[Canis]

In 2017 most people thought Bernie wouldn't run or would flame out with other younger potentially more charismatic candidates like Gabbard and Warren etc in the race and many predicted that a decent chunk of the Bernie vote would go to Gabbard.

[Bootes Void]

Alot of it is simping and not understanding people in general. Some obscure congresswoman is not going to do well in a crowded field especially if there is alot of heavy hitters running as well

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

She got a lot of online traction because she was seen as pro-Bernie and went on Joe Rogan, so young internet-inhabiting people saw her as being more significant than she really was.

[TML]

She appeared to be anti-establishment to many progressives, which was the main reason she was favored by them; as time went on, however, her right-leaning tendencies emerged little by little, and by the time her congressional term ended, it became abundantly clear that she was, in effect, a right-winger in left-wing clothing.

[Motorcity]

Who thought she was going to do well?

Wasn't she like less than 1% in most polls? She was a bullsh**t candidate like Tim Ryan or John Delaney who just want a new job or sell a book.

[Oregon Eagle Politics]

Because she is hot and went on Fox News and Joe Rogan, and seemed like What Republicans want the Democratic Party to be.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

She went on Fox news like Joe Manchin does, that's why Manchin won't get rid of Fillibuster, the go on that show, and now we know the real truth about it, it is no different than Twitter that keeps saying Trump won the Election, but Fox news Sunday us a different story

They went on Sean Hannity, who is another Rush Limbaugh

[Orser67]

She reminds me a little bit of Huntsman in 2012 in that she was active in the media and there was a fairly large, vocal group of people who really liked the idea of her on paper, but she didn't have much support among the actual primary electorate.

With that said, Huntsman was a much more serious candidate than Gabbard and had a respectable third-place finish in New Hampshire before dropping out.

[LtNOWIS]

I certainly remember a lot of bad takes saying she would be the Green Party nominee or otherwise try to sabotage Democratic efforts in November, when actually she stayed loyal to the party and endorsed Biden.

[DaleCooper]

She became a prominent character in the online culture war so there were plenty of partisan hacks in both the left and moderate wings of the Democratic Party trying to aggrandize her or demonize her and neither of them actually had a grasp on her positions. In reality there was never any reason to expect her to do well in the primary or run third party or refuse to endorse Biden or any other fantasy that people had cooked up about her.