Pete Buttigieg Exits the Race
I am bummed that Pete Buttigieg has dropped out of the race for president. I liked him as a candidate for president because he spoke thoughtfully and inclusively. I agreed with much of what he’s said publicly, including his thoughts on the Biblical view of justice.
Perhaps what I like most about Pete, as a public official, is his practicality. To me, he has the conscience of a liberal, but the pragmatism of a conservative.* This is well illustrated by the balanced approach presented in his proposal for healthcare system reform. I think the leader of our nation should be someone who is willing to hear out and able to understand the thoughts, feelings, and opinions of people with differing priorities, value systems, and political viewpoints. We don’t always have to find a perfect middle ground, but we should listen to one another. I think Pete would have been good at this. I also liked his ability to articulate his values and translate them into potentially workable policies.
Of course, our elections are basically popularity contests and Pete didn’t have the name recognition or the amount of experience voters wanted, not to mention the trouble he had connecting with people of color. What he did have is a strong intellectual background and a fair and balanced approach to politics, but it seems that those traits were not the key ingredients he needed to sway voters in his favor. In fact, it turns out, they were liabilities for him amongst those on the far left. Unfortunately, in today’s political landscape, centrism is a bad word. Nobody likes a moderate (except other moderates).**
I thought he would last longer in the race, but if I’m honest I didn’t think he would be elected anyway. He’s pretty dorky, for one thing. But mostly, I think he was too centrist for today’s voters. Many Republicans who don’t like Donald Trump as a person vote for him simply because he (arguably) upholds (some) conservative values. I think some Democrats are jealous of Republicans and would like an ideologue of their own in office. People are turnt up. Pete’s approach was to try to calm things down and engage in civil dialogue, not shouting matches, even with ardent conservatives. Maybe he wasn’t the right guy for the job (we’ll never know), but his approach is what attracted me to his candidacy.
In the future, I hope to see Pete’s vision played out. I would like to see the political tensions cool off a little bit and our leaders in all branches of government place a higher priority on unity.† Maybe Pete himself will be a contender again when he has more experience and name recognition.
* I realize this statement can be taken to mean a variety of things to people of various backgrounds because we tend to define words like liberal and conservative differently depending on where we stand politically. For those who are wondering what I mean by this statement, I am referring to the premium placed on equity among liberal ideologies and the emphasis on efficiency in conservative thinking.
** John Kasich was my guy in 2016 and he got dumped on by folks on the left and the right. I should say that I don’t think being a centrist or moderate is always the best method for engaging in public service or some kind of policymaking panacea — indeed, it can be a road to nowhere. Rather, I think the value of a measured approach lies in one’s ability to dialogue with people who think differently than themselves and moving forward from there.
† Friction is good, but too much can start a fire (and I don’t think America is at the point that we need an actual revolution; sit down, Bane). I believe disagreement and dissent are necessary but our vision has become clouded by ideology on both the right and the left to the point that we can’t have a civil discussion about how to get things done or even, in some cases, what we consider virtuous. I would like to think that voters want to find an ideological middle ground but we get swept up in the fast-paced social media frenzy with black-and-white arguments and shame-inducing rhetoric. Let’s not do that.
