Ronald Reagan famously postulated an Eleventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”

Democrats desperate for a united front against President Donald Trump have hoped their presidential candidates this year would follow a similar decree.

This was, of course, wishful thinking. The knives are out. The latest to strike: Hawaii Democratic Congresswoman and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, who took a swipe this week at the candidate who’s arguably the primary race’s new front-runner.

"I think one of the things I’m most concerned with is Kamala Harris is not qualified to serve as commander-in-chief, and I can say this from a personal perspective as a soldier,” Gabbard said.

This criticism of Harris -- and right-wing media’s increasing embrace of Gabbard, an avowed progressive who supported Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primaries -- has led to some fearful forecasting this week.

“Hot take/prediction: Tulsi Gabbard is going to endorse Trump in the end,” The Hill correspondent Reid Wilson tweeted on Tuesday.

Neera Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress, weighed in as well:

“My prediction: Tulsi runs as third-party Green candidate to help Trump win. I will take bets on this.”

Hot take/prediction: Tulsi Gabbard is going to endorse Trump in the end. https://t.co/dgynJCpMfX — Reid Wilson (@PoliticsReid) July 24, 2019

My prediction: Tulsi runs as third party Green candidate to help Trump win. I will take bets on this. https://t.co/PJ1RjnNoVF — Neera Tanden (@neeratanden) July 24, 2019

Political scientist and former Clinton Administration appointee David Rothkopf responded, “Advice to the world: Don’t take Neera’s bet. She is 100% right on this.”

Gabbard unquestionably is a progressive outlier. The Samoan-American Iraq War vet met with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2017 and publicly questioned whether his regime was responsible for chemical-weapon attacks in his country. She once held homophobic views and is determinedly opposed to the U.S. playing international cop.

The 38-year-old, who has frequently appeared on Fox News, met privately with Trump shortly after his 2016 election, a meeting “arranged” by Trump’s then-strategist Steve Bannon.

This much is certain: the right-wing media and various Trump supporters really like her.

“Tulsi Gabbard is brave and the kind of person we need in the diplomatic corps,” white nationalist leader Richard Spencer tweeted two years ago. “Tulsi Gabbard 2020.”

Popular alt-right figure Mike Cernovich recently said Gabbard has “a certain dignity to her that’s absent in the rest of the [Democratic presidential] field.”

Ann Coulter, author of tomes such as “Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism” and “In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!,” said after the first Democratic debate last month that she’d consider voting for Gabbard over Trump in a general election.

Gabbard, for her part, hasn’t addressed the predictions that she’ll run as a spoiler third-party candidate. Though polling at 1 percent, she’s focused on securing the Democratic nomination.

-- Douglas Perry

@douglasmperry

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