David Brooks explains why Pete Buttigieg is rising in 2020 polls as Joe Biden, Beto O’Rourke and Bernie Sanders get dinged
David Brooks penned a recent article, Why You Love Mayor Pete, discussing the success of the 2020 candidate, Pete Buttigieg (Boot-a-judge), hitting the nail on the head with this analysis:
“This has been an era of culture war, class warfare and identity politics. It’s been an era in which call-out culture, reality TV melodrama and tribal grandstanding have overshadowed policymaking and the challenges of actually governing.
“The Buttigieg surge suggests that there are a lot of Democrats who want to say goodbye to all that. They don’t want to fight fire and divisiveness with more fire and divisiveness. They don’t want to fight white identity politics with another kind of identity politics.”
Brooks continues: “They are sick of the moral melodrama altogether. They just want a person who is more about governing than virtue-signaling, more about friendliness and basic decency than media circus and rhetorical war.”
This is EXACTLY where Buttigieg is finding success.
As leftists attack Joe Biden on a decade old problem of being too “touchy feely,” take shots at Bernie Sanders’ race or Beto O’Rourke perceived sexist remarks about his wife, Buttigieg is running full speed at the tough problems.
A CNN townhall showcases the 2020 candidate and this interview dives into her perspectives on his homosexuality, Mike Pence and abortion.
Don’t be mistaken, the South Bend is pretty too the left, taking a liberal stance on gay marriage, dodging a stance on late-term abortions and the war.
“…he’s a progressive on policy issues, but he doesn’t sound like an angry revolutionary. Buttigieg’s policy positions are not all that different from the more identifiable leftist candidates. But he eschews grand ideological conflict,” Brooks writes.
“Young people are supposed to be woke social justice warriors who are disgusted by their elders. Buttigieg is the model young man who made his way impressing his elders — Harvard, Rhodes scholar, McKinsey, the Navy.”
Maybe Mayor Pete won’t make the cut, but the political landscape is changing faster than a Kirsten Gillibrand stance, so it’s worth noting and watching.
More from Brooks HERE