The Buttigieg delusion

Referring to her imaginary victory in the midterm elections, the LARPing governor of Georgia, Stacey Abrams, delivered to Democrat voters…

See the full story of The Buttigieg delusion on Spectator USA.

Referring to her imaginary victory in the midterm elections, the LARPing governor of Georgia, Stacey Abrams, delivered to Democrat voters a come-to-Jesus moment. ‘The notion of identity politics has been peddled for the last 10 years, and it’s been used as a dog whistle to say that we shouldn’t pay too much attention to the new voices coming into progress,’ she said to an audience last week. ‘I would argue that identity politics is exactly who we are and it’s exactly how we won.’

She didn’t win, for the record. But this is what they call in therapy a breakthrough. The Democrats seemed to have finally entered the fifth stage of grief: Acceptance, a time of adjustment, readjustment and resolve. We are identitarian socialists, more of them are coming to admit, we offer genitals and skin color and that’s OK!

The media is having a more difficult time being as upfront about its love affair with immutable human traits. Take Mayor Pete Buttigieg. When Buttigieg appeared on MSNBC earlier this month, shortly after being featured on the covers of TIME and New York magazines, host Donny Deutsch (apparently his real name) might as well have conducted the interview with a pillow under his knees.

‘You have had a stunning, stunning beginning to your campaign, the press is nonstop,’ he gushed. ‘Your resume – Harvard grad, vet, traditional in an untraditional way, religious, Rhodes scholar, you bring out hope and the better angels in all of us. When I read about you, I think, I’m not doing so good in my life. I can do better.’

That stunning act of submission shouldn’t surprise anyone. The media created Mayor Pete. He’s their excruciatingly non-threatening, focus group tested, snub-nosed, gay Frankenstein and they work overtime to pump life into him until the next shiny thing comes along and poor Pete goes the way of the Beto-bird. Sure, Pete comes off as charismatic and level-headed until one gets the impression he has no idea what he’s doing, or what he believes. But that won’t stop the media from gaslighting the American people to believe there is some reason other than his homosexuality that we would and should know Mayor Pete’s name. Reality check: there absolutely is not.

Imagine a 37-year-old straight, white, male, Christian whose only political experience is the failed mayor of a small, violent, impoverished Midwestern city being transformed like Cinderella into a media darling. Such a person wouldn’t even enter the race. In the age of identity politics, he’d be laughed and mocked into oblivion, if not chased down the street by a torch-wielding mob of green-haired feminists.

Although he appears to be polling decently in some Midwestern states, those numbers are dropping and a Buttigieg nomination is, at least as it stands right now, a multi-pronged delusion. When you look at the various victim groups the Left depends on for votes, the dark secret is many don’t like each other very much. It’s the role of puppet masters like Nancy Pelosi to keep everyone playing nice, but that doesn’t necessary motivate all the Special Victim Clubs out to the polls.

Are the Muslims going to vote for Mayor Pete? Gays don’t even like him all that much. He comes off as Gay In Name Only, or a GINO if you will. He and his ice cream-guzzling, house-hen husband Chasten don’t seem to have any knowledge of gay culture or to have experienced anything that the rest of us did who came out of the closet before our thirties. One thing I’d like to know is, why hasn’t any reporter asked Mayor Pete who his favorite RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant is?

But Pete’s biggest issue is with black voters. The Democrats cannot win an election unless blacks are motivated to get out and vote for them. Pete is currently polling at zero percent among blacks in South Carolina, the third state after (very white) Iowa and (equally white) New Hampshire that will hold a primary. And that’s where Pete’s campaign ends.

Mayor Pete’s aware of this. This month, he climbed aboard the Pandering Express. He sat down for a photo op with Al Sharpton where he dined on, wait for it, fried chicken. At least unlike fellow contender Kirsten Gillibrand, who did the same with a group of black business leaders, he didn’t use a knife and fork and also, like Gillibrand, he hasn’t yet summoned his inner fiery black minister when addressing a black crowd. Perhaps we will learn soon if husband Chasten carries around hot sauce in his Pokémon-themed fanny-pack.

Pete also jumped on the kneeling athlete/Colin Kaepernick bandwagon despite South Bend’s poor black community saying they feel left behind by Pete. ‘This shit looks the same, every time I walk through here,’ one resident told CNBC. ‘He’s improved shit.’

Mayor Pete is lily-white. But the left also can’t acknowledge the basic fact that huge swaths of the black community simply aren’t on board with the gays. I hate to say it, but the black community in general is pretty homophobic. Which, in my opinion, isn’t a bad thing. I, like all Republicans, support true diversity.

See the full story of The Buttigieg delusion on Spectator USA.