Approximately 20 Democratic presidential hopefuls are attempting to remove President Donald Trump from the White House in 2020.
Getting to Know Mayor Pete Buttigieg
“There is no honest politics that revolves around the word again,” reads Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s presidential website. “In the era of automation and globalization, major changes are going to happen whether we’re ready or not. The question isn’t: ‘Can we stop these changes and go back to the past?’
“The question needs to be: ‘How can we make sure these changes work for us?’ America is at its best when we master change for the benefit of every American.”
Buttigieg, 37, apparently took offense to the word again in President Donald Trump’s 2016 “Make America Great Again” slogan because he believes the country needs to move forward and not backward.
He also believes that he is the candidate that best represents modern America and is the best candidate to move the United States forward.
Buttigieg’s youth makes him a unique candidate to become the 46th President of the United States.
He grew up in the school shooting generation.
He also came of age at the time of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
He has also grown up in a time in which climate change became a reality, and a clear and present danger to the world.
So unlike some of the more seasoned candidates and the incumbent, Buttigieg constantly thinks of the country he will live to inherit in 2054 when he is the current age of President Trump instead of yearning for yesterday.
As a result, Buttigieg’s campaign has its eye on tomorrow.
But tomorrow and today could not have occurred without the struggle of yesterday.
A decade or two ago, South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s rise to popularity in political circles might not have happened.
An openly gay mayor of an American city now has a chance at the highest office in the land.
But a lot has changed, in the last decade especially, and many Americans could not care less about a person’s personal life.
And despite his youth, Buttigieg brags that he has more government experience than the current occupant of the White House.
He also likes to point out that he has more executive government experience than Vice President Mike Pence.
He is a multilingual Harvard University alum, as well as a Rhodes scholar.
Furthermore, Buttigieg says that he has more military experience than anyone currently in the White House.
To quote the late R&B songstress Aaliyah, “age ain’t nothin’ but a number” when a person has the experience to get the job done.
Buttigieg currently serves in his eighth and final year as mayor of South Bend, Ind., the home of University of Notre Dame.
The mayor served in the United States Navy Reserve as a lieutenant, even deploying to Afghanistan, unpaid for seven months during his term as the mayor.
The future presidential candidate even won the Joint Service Commendation Medal for counterterrorism work.
On the issues, Buttigieg’s stances make him the polar opposite to Trump and to an extent much different than some of his Democratic rivals.
Instead of Medicare for all, “Mayor Pete” as the locals in South Bend, Ind. affectionately call him, wants Medicare for all people who want Medicare.
He sees Medicare on the Obamacare exchange as a public option.
The presidential hopeful does not see himself eliminating private insurance.
However, over time he sees most Americans switching to Medicare because he believes it presents the best healthcare option.
Buttigieg fears that this American generation will become the first generation to make less money than their parents if action is not taken to reverse some of the economic inequities currently in place.
The 37-year-old likes the economic options that the Green New Deal could bring.
In 2017, Buttigieg supported DACA, which allows undocumented immigrants the opportunity to stay in America if brought to the country at a young age by their parents or guardians.
Buttigieg told CNN, “We have a president who got elected on a promise to fix immigration, whatever that meant to him, and what we’ve seen is that all the issues that were with us then are with us now and issues at the border, including a humanitarian crisis created by this president through cruel policies like family separation, are only getting worse.
“Meanwhile, the one thing that would really help the issue of increased migration flows from Central America—the words of one migrant who said, ‘I’m not here to seek the American Dream. I’m here because I’m fleeing the nightmare in Honduras.’—We’re actually seeing a threat under this president to take funds away from stabilizing those Central American countries. We’ve got this completely upside down.”
Despite the historic nature of Buttigieg’s run for the White House and the representation of total inclusion that his potential presidency would bring, many in the African-American community of South Bend, Ind. question the mayor’s response to police brutality and systemic racism and oppression in his city.
The policing controversy in South Bend, Ind. received national attention after a police officer, with his body camera off, shot and killed a 54-year-old African-American man, Eric Logan.
While Buttigieg continues to receive support from rich White liberals who donate generously to his campaign, the African-American community holds a lot of weight in the Democratic Party.
“If he can’t corral a 100-member police department, how will he corral the Defense and State Departments,” asked Len Gleich, 72, who heard Buttigieg speak in Hanover, N.H.
And in spite of Buttigieg’s executive government experience, many critics will point out that he serves as mayor of a small city and not a major metropolis like New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.
