Why Pete Buttigieg Should Return to His Centrist Roots
Pete Buttigieg has more in common with the Cold War liberalism of Adlai Stevenson, John F. Kennedy, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan than with many in his party today. Buttigieg should not shy away from this fact; he should embrace it.
Pete Buttigieg speaks on the campaign trail in South Carolina in 2019. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)
Editor’s note: TVC does not endorse any party or candidate.
Pete Buttigieg is in trouble. Almost a year ago a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio led to the mass pollution of the Ohio River Valley. The Secretary of Transportation’s response was seen by many as pathetically slow and uncaring—just another example of urbanite liberals ignoring rural America’s problems. To make matters worse, the disaster in East Palestine was the latest in a series of infrastructure calamities that have plagued Buttigieg since he joined Biden’s cabinet.
In truth, most of these catastrophes cannot reasonably be blamed on Buttigieg. After all, it is hardly his fault that he inherited an underfunded and woefully out of date infrastructure system. Nor has his response to the tragedy in Ohio been anything but professional and efficient. Nonetheless, Buttigieg took most of the blame for America’s imploding transportation system and has failed to overcome this narrative. Though manifestly unfair, these accusations stem from a simple fact: Americans are not sure what else to associate Buttigieg with. Sure, he is gay but for most voters, this is not very helpful information.
Americans want to know what a politician stands for. Their place in the political landscape. Buttigieg has never fit very comfortably in the ideological geography of the United States. Over the last five years, he has courted progressives, moderates, and neoliberals without ever joining any one faction. This strategy, far from lending him broad appeal, has earned Buttigieg a reputation as a slippery political salesman. As voters are left with no other information, he is quickly gaining an unfair reputation as an incompetent fool who limps from scandal to scandal.
The solution to this problem for Buttigieg is simple enough—he must let his true ideological colors shine. Despite accusations that he is merely a fair-weather politician, the true Pete Buttigieg is not actually that hard to find. In 2020, then Mayor Buttigieg announced his presidential bid with a self-written speech whose philosophic and political underpinnings both reveal his true political sensibilities and provide a foundation for a large and often ignored base of moderate liberals.
“For many on the left, the heart of the Democratic Party should be two other words: progress and equality. … Buttigieg’s speech subtly pushes against this progressive notion not by saying that these goals are unimportant but that they are better achieved in other ways.”
Buttigieg summarizes his core commitments with three words: freedom, security, and democracy. Throughout the speech Buttigieg shows how such rhetoric from the opposing party is often a sham. He sharply observes that conservatives talk ceaselessly about “freedom from taxes, freedom from regulation … as though government were the only thing that can make you unfree.” To correct this mistake Buttigieg points out that healthcare, racial justice, organized labor, and any number of other important left-wing causes are important components of freedom.
Security, Buttigieg shows, is an important part of liberalism too. After all, one cannot be meaningfully free unless one is secure. Rather than focusing on exaggerated threats such as migrants, he claims that solving problems of cyber security, election integrity, and climate change are every bit as much Democratic concerns as Republican ones. The protection of democracy, which is the last of Buttigieg’s core principles, was important when he announced his candidacy but has become infinitely more significant since, for reasons readers probably need no reminder of.
Centering these three principles as the heart of liberalism may not seem that groundbreaking, but it is. For many on the left, the heart of the Democratic Party should be two other words: progress and equality. Consciously or not, Buttigieg’s speech subtly pushes against this progressive notion not by saying that these goals are unimportant but that they are better achieved in other ways. Such an attitude reflects a form of enlightenment liberalism long since banished to the background of American politics. In short, Buttigieg has more in common with the Cold War liberalism of Adlai Stevenson, John F. Kennedy, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan than with many in his party today.
Pete Buttigieg should not shy away from this fact; he should embrace it. His charm, youth, and intellect leave him in an excellent place to revive the fortunes of centrist liberalism and to become the undisputed leader of his party’s moderate faction. A faction that, though a powerful force in the party, has gone without a single influential voice since the retirement of Barack Obama. By adopting this strategy, Buttigieg would allow the Democrats to bring into their fold the many moderates and independents left alienated by Donald Trump. Most importantly though, by simply being himself and advocating an updated form of Cold War liberalism, Secretary Buttigieg gives voters an idea of what he stands for, pulling attention away from infrastructure disasters and back to his vision for America.
