I know a lot of y’all like Mayor Pete, and I’m not gonna fly into your timelines like a pigeon with digestive issues, but I don’t support him, and here’s a quick overview of why (skip to #7 if you don’t feel like reading the whole thing):
- He has said nice things about Mike Pence, the same Mike Pence who intentionally engineered an HIV crisis in the state of Indiana. Yes, he’s doing damage control now, but … they are from the same state. Pence has always been trash. There’s no way Buttigieg did not know this.
- He continued his embrace of homophobia by suggesting that it’s fine to eat at Chick-fil-A. That might seem like a small thing, but it’s not. Chick-fil-A directly funds homophobic hate groups, and—here’s the big red flag—boycotting them is a well-known hot-button issue for LGBTQ people. Refusing to boycott them is basically pandering to people who want to be told that a little low-key homophobia is just fine.
- He is trying to pander to the Trumpers with the old “economic anxiety” BS. Nope. Call that shit what it is.
- He criticized Hillary on bullshit grounds, claiming that she ran a weak campaign. That is objectively untrue, and I refuse to vote for *any candidate* in the primary who says that. (So far most of the candidates have thrown Clinton under the bus. He is not unique.)
- He’s been the mayor of a town with a population of just over 100,000. That’s just not enough experience to run this country. The next president is going to have a harder job than any president has had for a long time because of how badly the GOP has fucked everything up. That person will have to rebuild entire departments. Pete ain’t ready.
- And yeah, he was reelected, but the total turnout for his second win was around 10,000 people—about 10% of South Bend’s population. In a town that’s elected Democratic mayors since like 1972. He didn’t exactly have a mandate.
- This to me is one of the most damning things: he made it his mission while mayor to get rid of “blight.” What that means in practice is that he demolished the homes of black people who in many cases had inherited them and were working to fix them up—and then CHARGED THEM FOR THE DEMOLITION. I will not support “community improvement” activities that make life worse for people of color. WILL NOT.
I am super excited for our first LGBTQ president, but I will not support a candidate who is essentially a DINO. He’s out here sounding smart and speaking eleventy languages and saying what he thinks you want to hear, and that’s all well and good, but I believe people when they show me who they are. Unless he makes a public, drastic, wildly improbably turnaround complete with an apology tour, I will never support Pete Buttigieg.
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