Pete Buttigieg’s Delusions of Grandeur
Mayor Pete was the darling of the Democratic Party back in 2020.
That no longer seems to be the case.
Pete Buttigieg Is a Failure
Let it not be said that America isn’t a radically egalitarian society, especially when it comes to Democratic Party politics. The rise of Pete Buttigieg from unknown small-town mayor (full disclosure: I am originally from South Bend, Ind., and have deep family ties there) to the current secretary of transportation is nothing short of remarkable.
Unfortunately, it is not remarkable in the way that a man in America could once go from a janitor to the CEO of a multimillion-dollar corporation through hard work. Instead, it’s remarkable—mortifying—in the way that a well-trained dog could learn to walk on its hind legs for a protracted period, mimicking its owners.
That’s precisely what “Mayor Pete” was in 2020: a perfectly bred politician designed by the donor class of the Democratic Party to appeal to everyone and offend no one.
Well-spoken, highly educated, openly homosexual, a Millennial, and a veteran of the War in Afghanistan (sort of), Buttigieg appeared as everything to everyone; an empty suit spewing false platitudes for the Bubble Gum Nation he desired to lead.
For the self-loathing Leftists, he checked the boxes on their preferred social status and, as a graduate of Harvard University as well as a former Rhodes Scholar from Oxford University (as in England, not Mississippi, you MAGA redneck!) he hit the jackpot for their favored academic credentials.
For the neoliberal set, the fact that Buttigieg served in Afghanistan and supported their favored economic programs meant that he was radical but in an acceptable—even chic—way, not like crotchety old Bernie Sanders who honeymooned in the Soviet Union and spoke often about giving the filthy Plebs Medicare-For-All by taxing the neoliberal elite.
Pete Buttigieg: The Next Barack Obama?
Buttigieg was meant to be the Barack Obama of the 2020 Democratic Party Presidential Primary.
In a field that was to be dominated by Barack Obama’s former vice-president, Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA), the actual heir-apparent of Obama’s presidential legacy, and crazy Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VA), Buttigieg’s sudden arrival was an unexpected welcome to a weary Democratic Party.
Maybe, just as Obama saved the Democrats from Hillary Clinton in 2008, Buttigieg could save the DNC from the septuagenarian, stuttering, gaffe-master, Joe Biden.
Too bad for Mayor Pete that he wasn’t the next Obama.
He and his backers were clearly banking on this false notion, though. Despite his positive press, Buttigieg couldn’t break through the crowded Democratic field in 2020.
Whereas Obama was a United States senator who had made a name for himself both as an eloquent African-American politician from Chicago, Ill., who had gained fame for being an early and outspoken opponent of the Iraq War in 2003, Buttigieg was better known for overseeing the installation of new light posts throughout downtown South Bend as mayor.
Some difference.
Mayor Pete did cut quite a swathe for himself in 2020…so much so that even after the comical collapse of his presidential bid under the weight of his own delusions of grandeur, Joe Biden offered the young Democratic politician the role of secretary of transportation.
Harboring greater political ambitions, Pete Buttigieg clearly assumed that this was his ticket to the next level. While no secretary of transportation has gone on to become President of the United States (POTUS), certainly no small-town mayor, such as Pete Buttigieg was before 2020, has become POTUS.
This was a step up.
Pete Buttigieg: America’s Marie Antoinette
Pete Buttigieg was being given a national platform with which to demonstrate both his loyalty to the party by serving President Joe Biden, whom he criticized during the contentious 2020 Democratic Party primary, and his competence in running a national program for the new president.
Of course, the small-town mayor with little real-world experience managing anything, was not qualified for the role of managing America’s elephantine (and ailing) transportation infrastructure.
With Pete Buttigieg as secretary of transportation, the Democratic Party’s obsession with radical egalitarianism—even at the expense of competence—has hit the reality of governing.
The secretary of transportation’s job is a lot like that of a plumber: do your job right and no one should notice. If you make a mistake, however, the whole system gets backed up with feces, and everyone notices.
Since Buttigieg became the secretary of transportation, the United States has been made to endure a series of crises within our transportation infrastructure. From costly airline delays due to faulty software to a toxic vinyl chloride chemical spill due to a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio (that was exacerbated by bad government policies during the supposed cleanup) that some critics have taken to calling, “America’s Chernobyl.”
Yes, this is all in a year’s work for Secretary of Transportation Buttigieg. When he wasn’t mismanaging America’s transportation infrastructure, he was taking extended vacations on the taxpayer’s dime—and complaining about the ingratitude of the rough-and-scoffing multitudes his policies have directly harmed. In many respects, Buttigieg is America’s Marie Antoinette: living lavishly on the dole while condemning those he was meant to serve to immiseration.
Buttigieg Was No Obama
Obama was much smarter in picking his political jobs: by opting to run for the United States Senate, Obama was able to carefully craft his image as a fierce critic of the Republican Party without actually having to hold any executive position that might create a record for his opponents to hold against him.
Pete Buttigieg went for executive roles that required real leadership, vision, and decisiveness—none of which are characteristics he possesses. And now Buttigieg has a record of abject failure in the one real job he’s ever held.
Buttigieg’s kind of failures are not the sort that even sycophantic Democratic Party hacks in the media can dismiss (they can only do their best to ignore).
Certainly, no voter will forget—or forgive—Buttigieg for his catastrophic mismanagement of the United States Department of Transportation.
In just four short years, Buttigieg will have gone from the Millennial Obama to the Millennial Rick Santorum: somewhat popular with the base of his party because of his social policies and completely unelectable because of his actual record.
Still, Mayor Pete was able to ascend to incredible heights in American politics because of his delusions of grandeur. These notions were shamelessly fueled by the Democratic Party’s obsession with race-and-gender grievance politics. Just as the last year has proven with actual fuel in the United States, the fuel of grievance politics is limited—and the cost of running one’s political ambitions off that particularly noxious gas is very high, most notably for the people you are meant to be serving (which Buttigieg is not).
Within in the next two years, Buttigieg will be gone and, God-willing, forgotten.
He will never be president.
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Brandon J. Weichert is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who recently became a writer for 19FortyFive.com. Weichert is a contributor at The Washington Times, as well as a contributing editor at American Greatness and the Asia Times. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower (Republic Book Publishers), The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy (March 28), and Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life (May 16). Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
