As Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg was a fine Mayor of South Bend, Indiana. Was there anything about his tenure that didn’t suck? Freeways were racist, he had to be forced to show up in East Palestine, Ohio, and billions of dollars later we have less than a dozen electric vehicle charging stations. The only way he could have been worse is…to… actually, I don’t know.
But Secretary Mayor Pete wants a future in politics, as working in the private sector is, well, work. So his failed image needs a makeover.
The best thing Pete has going for him is he’s gay. Normal people don’t care about that, but Democrats aren’t normal people, so who he sleeps with is a plus.
The worst thing he has going for him is pretty much everything else. He wasn’t a good mayor, he wasn’t a good secretary, he doesn’t seem like he’s much good at anything.
Pete was so bad that Kamala Harris passed on him as a running mate because of the very reason anyone knows his name – his sexuality. Kamala wrote that she didn’t pick Pete because she holds the American public in contempt. “We were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man,” she wrote. “It was too big a risk."
Imagine thinking this way.
She thinks the American public hates black women and Jews so much that the two of them together were so “toxic” that her VP choice had to be a straight white guy. There’s so much misunderstanding of the country in that it’s hard to know where to start.
The crux of it, however, is clear: Democrats can only handle so many boxes checked on the progressive hierarchy of victimhood that Pete had to be edged out.
Imagine someone aspiring to lead the United States thinking their VP choice A) mattered, and B) was “too risky” because they’re gay, so they went with someone they did not want and who actually damaged the ticket. Anyone afraid to make that call doesn’t deserve to be in a position to make it.
That being said, Pete would have been a horrible choice.
What does he bring to the table? The gay vote? If a Democrat doesn’t already have that, it’s over. The pretentious wealthy white guy vote? Again, that vote is owned by the DNC.
If anything, Kamala should have chosen Pete to energize those groups, because she brought literally nothing to energize anyone on her own.
Now Pete is out there trying to get attention for himself by weighing in on the news of the day. Honestly, he’s as interesting as he is exciting – meaning nothing about him or anything he does is either.
Democrats simply do not care about him. As much as they used to enjoy wrapping themselves in his sexuality, it’s gotten old; he’s lost that new candidate smell. They don’t care anymore.
Pete is such a non-entity on the left that they barely use him for fundraising emails anymore, and they still use Joe Biden for that.
Under the subject line, “Pete Buttigieg announcement,” the email quotes Pete saying, “The American people bow to no king.” That’s it, that’s the only quote from him in the whole email. Even the quotes they choose from him – usually the best, most exciting things someone said – are boring as hell.
“We don’t know what else to say,” the DCCC email opens, “WE TOLD YOU Trump loyalists are threatening the very foundation of our democracy. WE TOLD YOU House Republicans are raising TENS OF MILLIONS to hold onto their razor-thin Majority so that NO ONE can stand in Trump's way. WE TOLD YOU Democratic heroes like Pete Buttigieg are speaking out to STOP Trump's Republicans from enacting their destructive agenda.”
It's there where they use Pete’s boring quote. They continue, “So at this dire moment, we have no choice but to take DRASTIC action -- we’re calling for 30,640 of our most loyal Democrats to rise up and help turn the tide.”
So, if things were different they wouldn’t want 30,640 morons to give them money? Or would they not need to use someone as melba toast at Pete Buttegieg?
We’re still a long way from the 2028 election, thank God, but you’d think candidates under consideration would generate some level of enthusiasm from their base. Maybe Governor Hairdo in California does, maybe someone is excited about Kamala (though that will likely die when her book is released Tuesday), but no one is excited about Pete. If he were smart he would spend this time accomplishing something. Of course, if he were smart he already would have accomplished something.
Derek Hunter is the host of the Derek Hunter Show on WMAL in Washington, DC, and has a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.