Who is Pete Buttigieg?

[dalej42]

He’s opening 20 campaign offices in Iowa this month, so he’s in it seriously.

Pete Buttigieg flexes campaign muscle in Iowa, plans to open 20 offices in 20...

I follow his campaign pretty avidly. He’s been doing a lot of appearances, but definitely has backed off the media appearances. That’s probably a good strategy during the summer as people are on vacation and not really engaged with a 2020 election. Of course, that excludes hard core political junkies like me, but I’ve already decided to vote for him.

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

Mayor Pete is getting dragged by Black Twitter thanks to this piece in The Root.

He attended one of the best private schools in the country that was quite literally on the campus of one of the best colleges in the country, University of Notre Dame, where his father worked as a professor for 29 years. His mother taught at an even better, more elite school…

So, when a clip surfaced of Buttigieg explaining why negro kids fail at school so often, his answer made perfect sense.

“Kids need to see evidence that education is going to work for them,” Buttigieg explained whitely, when he was running for mayor in 2011. You’re motivated because you believe that at the end of your education, there is a reward; there’s a stable life; there’s a job. And there are a lot of kids—especially [in] the lower-income, minority neighborhoods, who literally just haven’t seen it work. There isn’t someone who they know personally who testifies to the value of education.”

I want to be clear: Pete Buttigieg is a lying motherfucker.

Majority-minority schools receive $23 billion less in funding than majority-white schools, according to a recent study by EdBuild. Black students in Indiana, the state where Buttigieg serves as mayor, and across the country, are disciplined more harshly than white students. But even though Buttigieg has never attended a school with more than 10 percent black students, he thinks he knows what’s stopping black kids from achieving their educational dreams.

Mayor Pete’s bullshittery is not just wrong, it is proof.

It proves men like him are more willing to perpetuate the fantastic narrative of negro neighborhoods needing more role models and briefcase-carriers than make the people in power stare into the sun and see the blinding light of racism. Get-along moderates would rather make shit up out of whole cloth than wade into the waters of reality. Pete Buttigieg doesn’t want to change anything. He just wants to be something.

This is not just a lie of omission, it is a dangerous precedent. This is why institutional inequality persists.

[Boycott]

Well I somewhat feel Pete is too young to be triangulating but it’s working for him.

[Unreconstructed_Man]

The Root is basically Breitbart for black people.

[Skammer]

I suspect, too, that Pete has learned a lot more about the barriers that minorities face in the last 8 years. In 2011 he thought the biggest problem was a lack of seeing education work for them; but what does he think in 2019? I want to see a candidate whose opinions change over time as he or she listens to the people in those communities.

[Moriarty]

@Skammer

I suspect, too, that Pete has learned a lot more about the barriers that minorities face in the last 8 years. In 2011 he thought the biggest problem was a lack of seeing education work for them; but what does he think in 2019? I want to see a candidate whose opinions change over time as he or she listens to the people in those communities.

Here’s his reply to the article quoted above:

"Well I reached out to the author, and while I obviously, I think that some of the characterization of me personally is unfair, I do understand the concern. What I said in that comment before I became mayor does not reflect the totality of my understanding then, and certainly now, about the obstacles that students of color face in our system today.
“I believe I was speaking about the need for mentorship and the need for career pathways but the problem is to the extent that, that feels like it’s validating a narrative that sometimes blames the victim for the consequences of systematic racism, I understand why he was upset and I understand the perspective and largely agree.”

[Gyrate]

The ability to say “You’re right” without actually saying “I was wrong” is quite an important skill for a high-level politician and is a point in his favor with regard to how he’d be as President.

OTOH it doesn’t inspire much confidence that he actually cares about the underlying problem being discussed, which is much less of a point in his favor.

[NAF1138]

I think the follow up piece by the writer of the original article in The Root is interesting and worth a read in full.

Pete Buttigieg Called Me. Here's What Happened

[Gyrate]

@NAF1138

I think the follow up piece by the writer of the original article in The Root is interesting and worth a read in full.
Michael Harriot: Pete Buttigieg Called Me

Good article. I am amused at the author’s self-description as “World-renowned wypipologist”.

[Lamoral]

uh…is “negro” a thing again? I noticed that the first time I read that article after someone had posted it on FB.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

You could say AOC isn’t a fan of his college tuition reform proposals: AOC's warning to Pete Buttigieg (opinion) | CNN

[NAF1138]

@Elendil_s_Heir

You could say AOC isn’t a fan of his college tuition reform proposals: https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/29/opinions/aoc-warning-to-buttigieg-zelizer/index.html

I can’t follow if that article is warning against those kind of attacks from AOC or warning against Dems taking moderate positions like Buttigeg is taking.

I agree though that the Democratic party is at an interesting crossroads right now and needs to be careful how it finishes out the primary cycle.

[Boycott]

@Elendil_s_Heir

You could say AOC isn’t a fan of his college tuition reform proposals: https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/29/opinions/aoc-warning-to-buttigieg-zelizer/index.html

A bit fed up of hearing people further on the left accuse other dems of using “republican talking points” because they don’t go as full out in their proposals that the Bernie-Warren wing want.

Republicans wouldn’t want any of the plans put forward by democrats. Healthcare, education, immigration. You name it and they’ll call it socialism.

[dba_Fred]

@Elendil_s_Heir

You could say AOC isn’t a fan of his college tuition reform proposals: https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/29/opinions/aoc-warning-to-buttigieg-zelizer/index.html

How would Candidate A differentiate themselves from the other candidates if they didn’t compare/contrast their plans/ideas to the others?
And if it’s a “talking point” or something liable to be brought up/pointed out, it doesn’t matter who brings it up or why; unless the thought is the Republicans wouldn’t notice it had not a Democratic candidate brought it up.

From the article: After all, some of the nation’s most successful federal programs — such as Social Security, Medicare and K-12 public education — have been available to all Americans regardless of their income. Surely, he doesn’t think that these programs are also misconceived? Am I the only one who notices that in 2 of the 3 programs mentioned there is recipient contribution to the program? I’m unaware of any of the free college for all/most that has recipient funding.

[Banquet_Bear]

@Boycott

A bit fed up of hearing people further on the left accuse other dems of using “republican talking points” because they don’t go as full out in their proposals that the Bernie-Warren wing want.

Republicans wouldn’t want any of the plans put forward by democrats. Healthcare, education, immigration. You name it and they’ll call it socialism.

…you really are missing the point. The Republican Talking Point isn’t “Buttigieg isn’t going full out in support of proposals that the Bernie-Warren wing want.” The Talking Point Buttigieg is using was:

“There are some voices saying, ‘well that doesn’t count unless you go even further, unless it’s free even for the kids of millionaires,’ but I only want to make promises that we can keep.”

Recontextualising universal coverage into 'the Bernie Warren wing want to provide free education for the kids of millionaires" is the GOP Talking Point. It misses the point of universality. Nobody in countries that provide Universal Healthcare or Universal Education complain that “rich kids get free stuff.” Nobody complains that rich people are able to use public libraries. Its a strawman argument. Its a GOP Talking Point.

If you means test then you have to create an entirely new infrastructure to run that means testing. Whether or not its a good idea is entirely worthy of debate. But the entire point of Talking Points is to re-contextualize complex issues into bite-size-easily-digestible-chunks, and the point is to avoid that debate. “Millionaires being eligible for free stuff with universal proposals” isn’t a false statement. But why is it bad for millionaires to be eligible for a scheme they will likely never-ever use?

[RTFirefly]

“I have to confess that I was slow to realize – I worked for years under the illusion that our schools in my city were integrated” - Mayor Pete

So as a mayor of a large town/small city, you were oblivious for years to something this basic that was happening in your town.

And you want to be President of the United States.

Whoa.

[RTFirefly]

@Boycott

A bit fed up of hearing people further on the left accuse other dems of using “republican talking points” because they don’t go as full out in their proposals that the Bernie-Warren wing want.

The problem with Buttigieg isn’t that his proposals don’t go as far. It’s his aiming his guns left, attacking the people whose proposals went farther for doing so.

In the case of free college, he’s using the bullshit “you’re gonna pay for college for millionaires’ kids” line (and yes, Republicans will turn around and use this kind of talking point to paint the Dems as the true elitists, don’t expect consistency from them) to argue that a means-tested program is better than a universal program.

And I gotta say, this is stupid every which way.

First, universal programs tend to have much closer to universal support than means-tested programs.

Second, once you draw a cutoff line and say, “no one making more than $X/year can benefit from this program” that line can be redrawn at a lower level to save money, the next time Congress has put themselves in a situation of having to cut one program to pay for another.

Third, any such program is going to have poor support from those above the cutoff, and those people are very reliable voters. The possibility of its being reduced to a half-assed tuition aid program for the poor in the next GOP wave is all too real.

Fourth, the cost differences between Buttigieg’s proposal and the Warren/Sanders proposals just aren’t going to be that great, if implemented as proposed.

4a) As I understand it, Warren/Sanders would only support paying for public college. If rich people want to send their kids to U.Va. instead of Harvard/Yale/Princeton, they can take advantage of this program. Obviously, genuinely rich people will continue to send their kids to the most elite school they can get into, rather than save a few hundred K by sending their kids to a state school.

4b) Even if the rich people did send their kids to public universities en masse, Buttigieg’s plan gives full support to the bottom 80%, and partial assistance to the next 10%. If you’re gonna pay for college for essentially 85% of students when you haven’t before, it’s kinda silly to say that that last 15% presents some insurmountable budgetary obstacle.

The only point of this is to launch a bullshit accusation that Warren and Sanders want to pay for college for the sons and daughters of billionaires.

I grow more disgusted with Mayor Pete by the day. As I think everyone in this forum knows, I think Biden would be a weak candidate and a weak President to boot, so I really don’t want him to be the nominee. But I’d take him in a heartbeat over Buttigieg. At least I know who Joe Biden is, warts and all.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

Here’s CNN on #NeverPete: How Buttigieg has drawn the fury of the online left: How Pete Buttigieg has drawn the fury of the online left | CNN Politics

[asahi]

@RTFirefly

“I have to confess that I was slow to realize – I worked for years under the illusion that our schools in my city were integrated” - Mayor Pete

So as a mayor of a large town/small city, you were oblivious for years to something this basic that was happening in your town.

And you want to be President of the United States.

Whoa.

I see that as a moment of reflection and introspection – good qualities to have.

I repeat that I like Mayor Pete as a person, and I think he has a future in politics, but he is way too assuming to believe he should be president or anything remotely close to it at this stage in his career. And his supporters are just channeling their “none of the above” energy that seems to be prevalent in our system today.

[Bijou_Drains]

Maybe someone has mentioned this, but South Bend is not a small town, it has 100K people and the metro area has 720k people. And it’s 90 miles from Chicago.

However I agree that he needs more experience to be president. He should spend some time in Congress/Senate or as governor before I think he is qualified.