Pete Buttigieg 2020 campaign megathread

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Buttigieg is getting traction because 1) he, like Trump, is showing up EVERYWHERE in media and therefore is reaching many more "average voters" and 2) he's good at doing it, so it's harder to sucker him into gotchas, meaning that those appearances have little downside.

Given those two, of course it makes sense to appear on Fox. They might try to trap him, and that's a real risk, but given how good he is at not getting trapped, the potential upside is much larger than the risk.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

If it weren't for the fact that the identity politics wing of the base would be bitter and salty over it, I think O'Rourke/Buttigieg or Buttigieg/O'Rourke would make a superb ticket.

Please stop perpetuating this awful term created to silence the opinions of historically marginalized groups. All politics revolve around identity.

You are, pound for pound, the most ridiculous poster on this site. People criticize identity politics because, when taken to its logical conclusion, it argues that people's political opinions should be determined at birth. If your immutable characteristics-- race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic/national background-- are the prime motive behind your politics, you are effectively surrendering your agency as a decision-making individual to random circumstance and the situation of your birth. It completely devalues a person's ability to decide things for themselves. So please stop perpetuating this awful worldview created to constrain the ability of free-thinking people to make choices for themselves. All politics should revolve around ideas, not identity.

He was implying that white, male, straight, Anglo voters also largely vote based on identity. It only becomes labeled as "identity politics" when non-white males do it, and it's used as a way of de-legitimizing conflicting viewpoints.

For that matter, identity isn't even restricted to "immutable characteristics". I am an intellectual (bad jokes incoming) and I support Elizabeth Warren largely because I identify with her most as an ambitious policy wonk.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Oh please JB! He's a horrible candidate, the end! WWC voters are not going to vote for someone articulate and nerdy as him. They are not the sharpest tools in the shed and therefore, they want someone who speaks to them in a way a six year old would be able to understand.

These same voters voted for Obama, many of them twice.

In addition, there is a homophobic section of the black community that would NEVER vote for a gay man, let alone one with the word butt in his last name.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

1=Obama won re-election in 2012. We're not in 2012, we're in 2019, get with the program!

Racial polarization in politics is much higher in 2019 than it was in 2012. Meanwhile, gay rights is more popular in each year. You're conflating two different trends.

2- Just because a black man is elected doesn't mean this country's ready to elect a gay man. We've had this discussion thousands of times for goodness sakes and myself, TT, RFKfan and others have repeatedly told people who make this cliche argument why it doesn't apply!

I was really reacting more to the butt thing tbh but I still will go on record as saying this fear, while it probably applies to some non-zero number of people, is not going to be a widespread problem, especially in the black community where the choice will be between him and "good people on both sides" Trump.

also citing Techno Tim in support of your argument is like citing Santander. Dude's trolling 3/4 of the time.

Whatever, I'm done with this thread.

Good idea.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

LOLOLOL. Virginia is gone for republicans. I understand you probably don't want Sanders to be the nominee, but the concern trolling here is plain ridiculous. Furthermore, calling out people who have no policy views and care nothing about moving the democratic party forward and would take a neoconservative hack like Jeff Flake over Trump is not racist. It's obvious RFKfan was referring to people like Peter Daou or Steny Hoyer not a generic white person.

This is such a meme. If Trump, a terrible fit for the state, could come within 5% of winning it when Clinton's VP pick was a former Virginian governor and she poured money into the state, then it's definitely not safe for the Dems yet. Democrats have just had quite a few scandals in the state, and while they've been doing well in statewide elections recently it's possible that this could change in the fall. Of the states Clinton won, I would rank Virginia as the third-most likely to flip to Trump, after New Hampshire and Minnesota.

lmao if you think Tim Kaine was the reason why Trump lost VA by 5 points instead of, you know, Donald Trump being himself. VA is one of the only states that trended left in 2016 and the two election cycles with Trump on the ballot have been absolute bloodbaths for the GOP

Also sitting Senator Claire McCaskill would love to tell you all about the transferrability of state-level scandals to highly nationalized federal elections.

New Hampshire, Minnesota, Nevada, Maine, Colorado, and Virginia could all easily flip to Trump and Trump would also win every state he won in 2016 if Sanders got the Democratic nomination.    

None of these outside maybe Nevada or Maine are remotely close to flipping in a Bernie vs. Trump election. Bernie pretty resoundingly beat Clinton in both NH and CO in 2018. He got a stupid number of write-in votes in MN in the 2016 general and that's the only reason why Trump came anywhere close to winning. VA wouldn't vote for Trump if he was running against Ralph Northam in blackface. Even in Maine there social safety net programs are incredibly popular and Bernie (who runs on these mostly in a race-neutral way) could lean on support for those pretty easily.

Even if you think Sanders would have a hard time he’d do better than Buttigieg. Pete is showing himself to be the candidate for wealthy virtue signaling white liberals who fetishize Bush 43’s presidency because of Trump’s tone.

So weird how some people are already convinced of which demographic groups won't ever vote for certain candidates. Just like in 2016 most (but not all) candidates will coalesce around the eventual winner. The idea that POC won't turn out for Buttigieg when most of them don't even know who he is at this point is kinda silly.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

I'm 22 and I got the reference, and I think Pete's point was more that the President has to stick to schoolyard bully tactics and dated references to gain political clout but...I've seen a lot of galaxy brain liberals being like "what kind of IDIOT doesn't know who Alfred E. Neuman is???"

The hate people are giving Buttigieg for this is so ridiculously dishonest. One of the cornerstones of his campaigns is that he's running as the youthful alternative! Of course he's going to use a comment like this to zing Trump for being old as dirt. People who are trying to critique this like it's a serious comment just want to dump on him for other reasons.

It's really baffling to me how, when people dislike a public figure, they feel the need to drag them for everything they do. Like, you're allowed to not comment on things that people you don't like say and do!

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Pete has released a page on his website detailing specific policy proposals and goals for a variety of issues.

This is a great step towards him solidifying himself as a serious contender.

He's just paraphrasing the ideas of other candidates.

You've shown a pretty consistent inability to think impartially or critically on anything relating to Pete Buttigieg so perhaps you should respectfully never post in this thread again, lad.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

https://twitter.com/marcushjohnson/status/1137232572373786624


Bad tactics, man. Buttigieg is so color blind that he doesn't see the inherent racism of this stunt.

A white guy drinking beer with black guys is racist?

Okay 1960s George Wallace.

You can't be serious right now

Explain how it's racist?

Perpetuates the stereotype of black people drinking on 40s in the hood.

That's an amazingly specific stereotype that I've never heard of. I imagine you would have to be considerably old to be aware of it, if it even exists.

Lol im black and under 30 years old. How have you never heard this? Surely the black guy who tweeted this out doesn't think it's amazingly specific.

I can confirm - I heard jokes about this when I was in school in Southern Virginia. With that said I think explicit references to this stereotype were rare but show a person drinking out of a paper bag to most voters in that area and something like this would come to mind.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

If any other candidate told a black protestor he "isn't asking for (their) vote", the Jedi would tar them as a racist, or at best, racially insensitive and their campaign would be done.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

https://twitter.com/SawyerHackett/status/1190375615167373312?s=20

I mean, he’s polling poorly with African-Americans in no small part due to that community’s homophobia, so that part isn’t really his fault.  Oh and also because he fired a crooked police chief who happened to be black, but again not his fault the guy decided to commit a felony.

Funny how literally everyone I've seen make this take is white.

Is it really a "take" when you can just look at the polling? African-American support for gay marriage is routinely 10% lower than white support for it.

I think ur missing the point about it only being white people, typically privileged white people making statements like that.

So? If the statement is correct, it doesn't matter who's saying it.

IDRK what point the person you quoted is making but there are two statements you could be referring to:

1) Support for same-sex marriage/same-sex-supportive policy is lower among AAs
2) Buttigieg's abysmal support among AAs is due to his homosexuality

1) is supported by polling but 2) isn't. 2) isn't necessarily disproven but people are inferring a relationship that there is no evidence for.

We know that Obama had plenty of support from people who were not racially progressive (there is evidence for this!) Why isn't Buttigieg receiving support from people who are not progressive on SSM? Could be due to homophobia but it could be due to lots of other things.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Also the notion that consultants tell people exactly what they want to hear is the opposite of reality.  Attacking McKinsey really isn't going to work.  NEET twitter progressives may not have heard of it, but among real adults it's well-known as an extremely prestigious company.  You might as well attack him for working for Google.

Consulting is a joke of a profession and even many people who do it are aware of this. It's a great way for upper middle class failsons/daughters to maintain a shred of their parents social status and a great way to pay off college loan debt but to act like working for McKinsey is indicative of anything but social capital and good backpatting is hilarious.

There's a small constituency of people in the primary who will see it as an asset but for many working a cushy DC consultant job where the tangible benefit is murky and ill-defined is so far from what the current moment wants. The left is starting to catch up with the right in terms of its sneering towards elites and its critique of "meritocracy". It's an insincere line of work that's reserved for people from elite schools. This won't be a deadly blow to Buttigieg but it will reinforce people's bad perceptions of him rather than help him in any way.

The endorsement bungling will reinforce the image among people on the left that Buttigieg is opportunistic and inauthentic. The campaign already has an image among much of the primary electorate as being held up by elites and donors and having to fabricate grassroots support won't help that image, especially when the left has candidates (yes, note the plural) doing the actual walking in addition to the talking.

The critique about losing to a rape apologist is so intellectually dishonest that I want to discount it, but for a party base that's terrified of its own 2016 "electability" shadow it could have some pungency. Even still anybody who follows politics even fractionally should understand why this complaint is dumb.

And he got destroyed in Deleware to an rather unknown Senator from Illinois.

Barack Obama was not "unknown" by the time people were voting in 2008.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

This debate around college tuition that treats universities like libraries or most other free public goods is either insanely dishonest or ignorant.

Where do people think the revenue from charging tuition goes? It pays for the services the university provides; it pays the salaries of faculty and staff, for materials used in textbooks, for food served in dining halls, and most importantly, for a lot of financial aid that schools are able to provide for lower income students. Yes there are pell grants and other small scholarships which people can cobble together for assistance but if you're cutting out tuition from higher-income students you're cutting out a revenue stream that subsidizes lower income students.

Could you subsidize student tuition by raising taxes on these high-income earners? Of course you could. There's this inane argument that forcing higher income students will lead to wealthy people holding resentment against higher education. But this same thing would happen if their taxes would predominantly be propping up universities for lower income people to attend! It happens with nearly other public service.

The idea that rolling college tuition into taxes will eliminate any class conflict around higher education just... doesn't make sense to me.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Pete Buttigieg’s Campaign Says This Wikipedia User Is Not Pete. So Who Is It?

Ashley Feinberg is a little over the top but she's also hilarious and I have a soft spot for her from when I used to read deadspin (RIP). Read this article. It's all circumstantial evidence but the implication is very funny!