"You’ve got Tulsi, ex-Democrat, Elon, ex-Democrat, Joe Rogan, ex-Democrat, Robert F Kennedy Jr, ex-Democrat, Donald Trump, ex-Democrat…the Republican Party is run by old school Democrats!"

In 2019, Ain’t That Swell podcasters, Jed Smith and Vaughan Blakey, spent forty-five minutes on a Skype call to the then wanna-be democratic nominee for the presidential race, Tulsi Gabbard

Vaughan woke up one morning to a DM from Tulsi, a surfer, saying.“Hey guys, love the show, love to come on sometime.”

Vaughan’s nostrils, you’ll remember, were almost fatally distended by the presidential perfume.

Tulsi performed well on the show, she referenced other episodes of Ain’t That Swell and patiently remained silent as the broadcast was diverted by Jed Smith on his many wonderful little rants.

But fast-forward five years and Tulsi is the new Director of National Intelligence under Republican President Donald Trump. It was a hell of a switcharoo and one I knew my ol pal Jed Smith would have an opinion on.

So I call up Jed, thirty-seven now and living a thousand clicks away from his Bondi neighbourhood. I figure he’ll hit me with some socialist and wildly anti-capitalist bullshit, which I’ll secretly enjoy and mostly agree with, and tell me Tulsi’s a turncoat, a sell-out etc.

He don’t.

“I’m loving her,” he says in the same recognisable Australian drawl that brings in tens of thousands of listeners to his and Vaughan’s podcast. “She’s exactly the same person. It’s so interesting, man. You’ve got Tulsi, ex-Democrat, Elon, ex-Democrat, Joe Rogan, ex-Democrat, Robert F Kennedy Jr, ex-Democrat, Donald Trump, ex-Democrat…the Republican Party is run by old school Democrats! A vote for change is a vote for the Republican Party which is run by old school left-wing people.”

Jed says Tulsi hits all the points you should care about, like the looming spectre of nuclear war.

“She’s anti that shit. She’s been calling out the threat of a nuclear war for years and years. That’s her main thing, stopping America’s imperialist interventions abroad. She wants to quell the fucking threat of nuclear war. What could be wrong with that? I don’t give a fuck if she’s wearing a red hat or a blue hat. I don’t want the world to go up in smoke. She’s a veteran and when you’re part of that military culture, a shit kicker, it’s a brutal truth-telling culture, same as the bottom end of the working class. You call a spade a spade and the fact she’s in the Republican Party, well, that’s fucking epic. The Democrats black-balled her. They weren’t going to give her shit and they shut out Bernie Sanders. The Democratic Party is a write off. You’re mad to have any faith in ‘em.

We talk a little about why Hillary Clinton claimed Tulsi was a Russian asset. Jed says it’s ‘cause Clinton’s a stooge of the fabled military industrial complex; I think it’s ‘cause Tulsi, hot as fuck, a little colour in her skin, smarter, a vet, a woman, was stealing nasty old cuckquean’s thunder.

I tell him, you should get Tulsi back on Ain’t That Swell. Director of National Intelligence v Jed and Vaughan. Tell me that won’t get the needle firing north.

“I should hit her up again but I don’t like my chances. She’s one of the biggest hitters in the world, one of the most famous people in the world. Mate, it was crazy when she was on the show. Forty minutes. She cut deep, straight to the bone. Didn’t shy away from anything. And we get blowback from people when they listen to that interview now. Messages saying, how can you support her? I’m, like, what do you mean? What is your problem with her? We get these die-hard Californian Democrats telling us we can’t support her. We hate you. You’re out of the club.”

Ol Jedaum sighs the sigh of a man, a good man, a surfer and not the new sort that has little crumblings of baby powder in his underarms from his anti-rash regimes.

“The culture wars are so nauseating. So spun. You know, it’s so simple. Most people want dignity for the poor and an end to poverty. Fundamental common sense shit. Decent housing. Good quality food not full of poison and plastic and fucking vaccines that aren’t going to fuck us all it. It’s all pretty fucking reasonable. Who fucking wouldn’t want that?”

Jed pauses.

“Fuck!”

“We back bitches!”

Yeah, you know the story by now, but here’s a little recap if you’re coming in late.

Bonny Hills shredder Kai Mckenzie, part of that sexy Rage gang of underground surfers who don’t fit the mould of, say, a Hurley or Billabong surfer, was hit by a ten-foot Great White while surfing a break wall in Port Macquarie, back in July. 

Kai belted the shark even after it took off his right leg, made it to shore alive, but barely, where an off-duty copy ripped off his dog’s lead to fashion a tourniquet thereby saving the kid’s life.

His leg was miraculously washed ashore shortly after the attack where it was packed on ice, chucked on the car ferry that takes you back across the Hastings River and rushed, complete with cop escort to Port Macquarie Base Hozzy in the hope it could be reattached. 

Spoiler alert: It couldn’t.

But Kai Mckenzie ain’t weeping in bed and lamenting his misfortune.

One month ago, he paddled out at the same joint where he was hit, bouncing down the sand on his one remaining leg and stealing into little tubes as a surfboard-riding booger.

 

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And, earlier today, on a late spring day so perfect it feels blessed by the gods, Kai rode his first waves, stand up, minus what most of us would regard as the crucial rear stilt. 

He writes simply,

“We back bitches.”