Because right after this incident from the last debate:

Iconoclastic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard did the unforgiveable in the eyes of the hidebound Democratic Party establishment: She knocked down one their favorites, Kamala Harris.

Now, through the miracle of rule-rigging, the Democratic establishment has maneuvered to exact a price from her: No appearance at the next Democratic debate. No more taking down the next favorite.

Get a load of this from Michael Tracey in a piece written for RealClearPolitics:

Tulsi Gabbard is on the verge of being excluded from the next Democratic presidential debate on the basis of criteria that appear increasingly absurd. Take, for instance, her poll standing in New Hampshire, which currently places Gabbard at 3.3% support, according to the RealClearPolitics average as of Aug. 20. One might suspect that such a figure would merit inclusion in the upcoming debates -- especially considering she’s ahead of several candidates who have already been granted entry, including Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, and Andrew Yang. But the Democratic National Committee has decreed that the polls constituting this average are not sufficiently “qualifying.” What makes a poll “qualifying” in the eyes of the DNC? The answer is conspicuously inscrutable.

Tracey also noted that Gabbard was well above the campaign donor threshhold with 160,000 unique donors from all 50 states which ought to have gotten her in. But according to his piece, the Democratic Party bigs are weighing the matter towards polls they arbitrarily say the key ones, superceding even money raised in a rather subjective process, moving the goalposts. It all raises questions about how rigged those particular polls might be, or if they made those decisions just to Get Gabbard out. As a result, it looks like Gabbard isn't going to make the cut.

Which raises the question of whether this was 'punishment' for that little misdeed around Kamala Harris at the last debate. Nobody messes with Kamala, it seems, so now Tulsi must pay a price.

Two things not explicitly mentioned in the Tracey report also stand out to strengthen the argument:

One, the herd is not really being culled for Debate Three.

Democrats are still going to be taking Marianne Williamson into the debate as well, along with this lengthy list of pipsqueaks and other obscure characters listed below. Just not that woman in the white pant suit who is remembered for the debate's most memorable moment in Debate Two, the takedown of Kamala Harris.

Here’s who has qualified so far:

• Joe Biden

• Cory Booker

• Pete Buttigieg

• Julián Castro

• Kamala Harris

• Amy Klobuchar

• Beto O’Rourke

• Bernie Sanders

• Elizabeth Warren

• Andrew Yanghttps://t.co/piz8KbTnhT — POLITICO (@politico) August 20, 2019

Isn't Julian Castro polling around something like zero? Maybe he's there for affirmative action purposes, alongside his lockstep extremism.

Two, Google seems to have already done a number on Gabbard, taking down her paid-for campaign ads during the first debate when Internet viewers' interest in her spiked to the highest levels of all the campaign. Google, most of the reporting has neglected to note, is brimming with former Obama administration operatives. Democrats, the pillars, the money, the establishment. Might that suggest some sort of fix in for Gabbard as well? It's pretty obvious something is going on.

Now she's done the unforgiveable: She embarrassed the Democrats' prized favorite, Kamala Harris, tanking her ratings in the polls, and for that, the Democratic political machine has issued a political death sentence.

Right after Tulsi finished the second debate, Kamala Harris really did utterly tumble in the polls. Democratic voters, now aware of her incredibly corrupt record as a prosecutor - endorsing false testimony, keeping people in jail beyond their terms, throwing the impoverished in prison for marijuana crimes while admitting she enjoyed the weed herself -- are avoiding her now like a bad smell. Harris is damaged goods now, and she won't recover. Tulsi, on the other hand, seems to be rising as a result.

For the Democratic establishment, that's unforgiveable. They're going to make Gabbard pay for that one by not allowing her a seat at next month's Democratic debate.

It goes to show that the Democrats are still the same old Democrats, and up to their old rigging tricks, putting their thumbs down on the scale for the candidates they prefer. They've done it before, against Bernie Sanders, and now they are doing it again to avenge Harris.

A lot of big Democratic donors, after all, have poured money into Harris's campaign (coincidence of coincidences, from Silicon Valley) and now they've lost money. They can't be happy, and they're no doubt complaining about it to the Democratic Party apparatus and demanding that they "do something" about Tulsi. Or else.

Now they're now stuck with Joe Biden as the likely Democratic candidate, because they can't support Elizabeth Warren who wants to break up Google, and quite a few Democrats, including Joe's own wife, aren't so sure they want him, either. But Kamala is gone and so is the money that went into propping her up. Nobody gets away with stamping down the Democrats' favorite candidate....

Hearing from those barons, and being the same old "Chicago Way"-style machine pols they've always been, what's apparent now is that Democrats aren't going to let Tulsi get away with it. Now we see payback: No debate for her.

Image credit: shareable CNN YouTube screen shot