I have a friend who actually thought Tulsi Gabbard was a decent democratic presidential candidate in 2020 and thought democrats were being unfair to her.
To be fair—my mom, who at 72 was mostly apolitical until Trump 1.0—thought Gabbard might have been a good “moderate” woman to stand up to Trump.
She later recanted. But there was a moment in time when Gabbard appealed to a certain segment of D folks who were simultaneously not terribly well informed nor particularly progressive, but who were anti-Clinton/anti-establishment Dem.