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J Bryant
J Bryant
2 years ago

If Democrats think Buttigieg is the answer, they don’t even understand the question.
This is my hope for the mid terms and for 2024. Latching onto BLM and the progressive agenda was a successful tactic for the Dems last year. Many of their senior leaders now seem to truly believe in progressive orthodoxies, CRT and all the rest of it.
But they don’t seem to understand how alienating the progressive agenda is for a huge section of the population (including moderate Democrats).
Long may the Dems remain blinkered. They might yet hand victory to the Republicans and we can only hope the GOP is up to the task of stabilizing the USA.

Amos Sullivan
Amos Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  J Bryant

Let us all work to make the red wave in mid terms be the greatest blood bath democrats have ever seen. Once we take the House and Senate we hold real open hearings exposing the corruption of the Democrats and any RINO in office.
Arrest Cassidy Hutchinson as a perjurer and send her to jail for 5 years as the law allows, make this little girl the example as we pursue the arrest and imprisonment of Schiff for Brains, Pelosi and Waters.

Jesper Bo Henriksen
Jesper Bo Henriksen
2 years ago

Pete Buttegieg is the 2021 version of Sammy Glick, the hero of the classic 1940 novel “What Makes Sammy Run?” To quote the Urban Dictionary: “In the novel, Sammy Glick is a heartless go-getter who will stop at nothing to pursue his ambitions, regardless of the consequences to others.”
I first realized Buttegieg was a Glick when he manipulated the Iowa Caucuses in early 2020 to serve his own purposes. I was confirmed in my belief when he repeatedly advertised himself as the “first openly gay member of a Presidential Cabinet”, ignoring the openly gay Ric Grenell, the Director of National Intelligence who was one of the more competent members of the Trump administration.
The guy’s a creep. I’m an independent who votes for both Democrats and Republicans, but I cannot imagine voting for Pete.

Amos Sullivan
Amos Sullivan
1 year ago

The democrats obsession with homosexuality and pedophilia should be their downfall.

Matt Hindman
Matt Hindman
2 years ago

Being AWOL as the Secretary of Transportation while there is a major supply chain crisis going on is just the sort of advertisement he needs.

Jesper Bo Henriksen
Jesper Bo Henriksen
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt Hindman

And then he accused anyone who questioned him of not supporting his paternity leave.
First of all, any man or woman going on parental leave needs to announce they will be away, explain for how long they will be away, and then appoint a competent substitute. (I did this for my own parental leave.) Pete didn’t.
Second of all, this was clearly a planned pregnancy, since Pete is married to a man and needed to arrange for a female surrogate. If he wanted to be a hands-on parent, how about not taking a Cabinet-level job? He could have been a White House advisor or something, which would have been much more flexible.

Doug Pingel
Doug Pingel
2 years ago

He gave the wrong answer to JFK’s famous question. I could understand it if his “Other Half” had actually given birth and was feeling washed-out, having the baby-blues, etc but what he did took privilege too far.

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
2 years ago

If the US needs that Democrat female president doesn’t Tulsi Gabbard look a lot more attractive than Harris? Just asking as I haven’t a dog in the race.

Jesper Bo Henriksen
Jesper Bo Henriksen
2 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

Yes, but she’s alienated too many people for the moment, in particular too many party officials and big donors.

Francis MacGabhann
Francis MacGabhann
2 years ago

She also has an extremely aggravating practice of dragging her military service into absolutely every interview and TV conversation she takes part in, regardless of the subject under discussion. “Hey, Tulsi, what time is it?”. “Well, according to this watch, which I wore in combat, shoulder to shoulder with my military brothers and sisters in Iraq…” It can be absolutely cringe inducing.

James Joyce
James Joyce
2 years ago

This is an excellent observation and let me point out something to non-US UnHerd readers: TG was in the Hawaii National Guard. This is not a professional force, not really a fighting force, but was misused because of the demands of fighting two completely stupid and counterproductive wars. The appropriate use of the Hawaii National Guard is more along the lines of traffic control if a volcano erupts, helping with supplies if there is a huge storm and the power is out. For TG to portray herself as a “warrior,” really the first female Navy SEAL is wrong, disingenuous, and borders on disgusting.
That being said, I like her policies more than most, and PB is similarly a military fraud who just got his ticket punched–he’s no hero!

Tom Krehbiel
Tom Krehbiel
2 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

She looks more attractive to the country at large than Harris – a great many people do – but that doesn’t mean she’s as popular in the Democratic Party.

John Croteau
John Croteau
2 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

Kunce and Adams will have the same problem as Tulsi Gabbard. They don’t toe the party line on Far Left, Progressive policies. They can run and win local elections, but their nomination for national elections would imply the Party modifies its current, radical platform based on identity politics.

Amos Sullivan
Amos Sullivan
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

Democrat leadership is too obsessed with deviancy.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
2 years ago

Excellent analysis! Some of the old Democrats were Tammany Hall rather corrupt politicians and of course other were out and out racists. However they could always understand and communicate with their constituents, who didn’t need to have undergone a ‘critical theory’ course to understand their politicians!

Bryan Dale
Bryan Dale
2 years ago

Support among non-whites is crumbling too. Trump earned the highest support among blacks by a Republican since Nixon’s 1960 run. Hispanics are swinging toward Republicans too. For decades, Florida and Ohio were considered swing states, now both are solidly red.
Biden relied heavily on fraudulent voting in a few populous districts to take the presidency. Without that Trump would still be president and we would have avoided the catastrophes of the past year.

Jesper Bo Henriksen
Jesper Bo Henriksen
2 years ago
Reply to  Bryan Dale

Although one is generally banned online for saying so, I think history may prove this to be correct.
I noticed the other day that Tom Barrett, the mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has been nominated for a plum ambassador job in Luxembourg. (Sounds tiny, but it’s rich, peaceful and allows for fancy parties with mandarins from the many international organizations headquartered there.)
I presume this was a reward for “delivering” Wisconsin, where many Democratic votes suddenly appeared in the middle of the night.

Last edited 2 years ago by Jesper Bo Henriksen
Gunner Myrtle
Gunner Myrtle
2 years ago

I get ridiculed by everyone when I say that there actually may have been serious fraud – but I do think there might have been. Like many people I found the way vote counting just stopped around midnight when Trump was leading to be bizarre – followed by a huge jump overnight in Biden votes. I don’t know why everyone acts like it was impossible during an election where all mainstream media and social media intentionally buried the Hunter Biden story that directly implicated the Presidential candidate in corruption with the public assistance of 50 (!) ex intelligence agency people. However I agree that the true story probably won’t come out for many years. It would be an interesting investigative journalism book to read regardless of the conclusions if the author was a straight shooter.

Amos Sullivan
Amos Sullivan
1 year ago

Until Americans can walk the streets of DC and see liberals democrats and their loved ones hanging from every lamppost America remains at risk.

John C
John C
2 years ago

Good article but it should be highlighted that Pete also has military experience, which is rare amongst democrats and important to win votes.

Jesper Bo Henriksen
Jesper Bo Henriksen
2 years ago
Reply to  John C

True, yet anyone with a dedicated interest in the military – including those who served and their families – knows that Pete was mostly a driver for the people with a lot of stripes on their shoulders and used his limited time in uniform to make spiffy connections. He was hardly a grunt, and certainly not Special Forces.

Kat L
Kat L
2 years ago
Reply to  John C

He drove a jeep

Francis MacGabhann
Francis MacGabhann
2 years ago

I’m sure he’d sweep the polls with 90% of the vote, just like when he became mayor of South Bend. Well, assuming the US is a Democratic Party barony, the way South Bend is, where only the Democratic primaries count and the actual election doesn’t. Oh, and also assuming that only 11% of the electorate actually turn out to vote, just like they did in South Bend.

Jesper Bo Henriksen
Jesper Bo Henriksen
2 years ago

In addition, the Democrats are deeply dependent on the Black American voting block, and Pete did not appear to have a good reputation among Black residents of South Bend.

Mikey Mike
Mikey Mike
2 years ago

Furthermore, gay men taking maternity leave does not poll well with older black voters.

Francis MacGabhann
Francis MacGabhann
2 years ago
Reply to  Mikey Mike

Wouldn’t think it’d be huge with younger ones either. Or white voters. Or Hispanic. Or Asian…

Mikey Mike
Mikey Mike
2 years ago

That was my delicate way of saying blacks in general and older blacks in particular do not think real highly of gay rights. They are much more conservative in that regard than people realize.

Francis MacGabhann
Francis MacGabhann
2 years ago
Reply to  Mikey Mike

Actually, I suspect most people are much more conservative about gay rights than is generally imagined. It’s just that blacks have a certain leeway to speak out about it that the rest of us don’t.

Mikey Mike
Mikey Mike
2 years ago

I think you’re probably right. But blacks, in spite of being one of the most reliable Democrat voting blocks, are more closely aligned with White evangelical Christians (the most reliable *Republican* voting block) than Democrats on the issue of homosexuality.

Bob Taylor
Bob Taylor
2 years ago

11%! I live in Mishawaka, which is conjoined with South Bend. Most people who are here don’t want to be reminded that they are, hence my surprise that the turnout was as high as it was.

William Hickey
William Hickey
2 years ago

Get used to being depressed. It’s coming to Britain more every year.

Alex Limpach
Alex Limpach
2 years ago

Eric Adams did not “storm to victory”; he only won by 1% over his closest competitor, Kathryn Garcia.
So, basically, the author is saying that a first-class education and an upper middle-class background are non-starters if one aspires to high office? Isn’t that what Communists thought when they required that intellectual elites go through “re-education”?

William Hickey
William Hickey
2 years ago
Reply to  Alex Limpach

When “a first-class education” and aspiring to secure a place in the upper middle-class means having a snobbish — at best — attitude toward non-college-educated white people — those formerly known as “the common man” — then Yes.

Those are non-starters for high office in America

FDR, JFK, LBJ and MLK all knew better, without “re-education.”

So did Reagan. Even Bill Clinton.

Bob Taylor
Bob Taylor
2 years ago
Reply to  William Hickey

A pain I’ve had since 1968 is that Robert Kennedy didn’t evade Sirhan Sirhan that evening in Los Angeles. He would have made George Wallace a non – factor, and whacked Nixon good and hard that November.

His late brother, the President, was a great politician, if, ironically, a rawther English one. JFK had not just an experiential remoteness from economic want, but a temperamental one. RFK could imagine himself in the place of the needy, the left behind. He had a great Irish politician’s unashamedness about righteous outrage.

If he’d become President, Lewis Powell would have remained in obscurity, and it’s likely the United States would have avoided the libertarians’ economic nocturnal emissions, and the new Age of the Oligarchs.

And 30,000 more men wouldn’t have died in youth, in Vietnam.

Tom Krehbiel
Tom Krehbiel
2 years ago
Reply to  Bob Taylor

No, he wouldn’t have won the Democratic nomination, as Humphrey – who was in no primaries – already had it sewn up. Unless, of course, you think he might have mounted a 3rd party campaign. I doubt that he could secure a victory that way, though, especially since he and Humphrey would be cutting into each other’s voters.

Last edited 2 years ago by Tom Krehbiel
Bob Taylor
Bob Taylor
2 years ago
Reply to  Tom Krehbiel

Tom, he had the momentum. Do you think the big bosses hadn’t noticed that? He shouldn’t have won the Indiana primary, because of Indiana’s imposingly large white population, yet he did. I don’t know your nationality or age, so how could I know whether it’s likely you’ve seen the moving photos taken from the train carrying his casket from NYC to DC? I go melancholic every time I look at them. They show God’s plain people, most of them white, many with their right palms on their chests, many others saluting, the uncoolest of the uncool, patriots, stricken. Bosses, and most of them were Irish and tough and didn’t much respect Humphrey but did respect Kennedy, couldn’t have expected to remain bosses if they had ignored such people: is it historical or pseudohistorical that one of the old mastodons once said in a speech, “Sure I stole, but I stole for you!”? If only a yarn, it italicized a fact.

Momentum. I remember that 85 day campaign. I was 16. I’m American. Here is the difference in the nation’s responses to the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers: For JFK, there was shock, grief, resignation, but hope. The dark pageantry of those four days until the flame was lit at Arlington was an archetype for the ages. Few doubted that the United States would continue to thrive.

When RFK died, there wasn’t much shock. I think his assassination was preceded by an expectation of it in the nation’s mass unconscious mind. I remember not grief, only despair.

That was his summer, his year.

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
2 years ago
Reply to  Alex Limpach

Unfortunately the first class education and upper middle class background isn’t the problem – it’s the fact Democrat politicians in the USA from such backgrounds patronise the working class as uneducated or bigoted, and needing to improve themselves. Just like Gordon Brown did when he referred to a working class woman as a bigot for airing her concerns.

William Hickey
William Hickey
2 years ago

So the author of The Emerging Democratic Majority is having big second thoughts.

He didn’t take the normal, to-be-expected-by-all-people-everywhere reaction to black behavior into account — like all dreamy liberals. He must have been asleep during the integration and school battles of the 1960s and 70s. Now he’s waking up.

Conservatives should highlight prominent black progressives speaking about “whiteness” and reparations in their campaign speeches and advertisements aimed at Hispanics. Toss in Pete Buttigieg’s smarmy visage for extra effect. Make them the face of the Democratic Party.

Heh, heh, heh, heh….

Emre Emre
Emre Emre
2 years ago
Reply to  William Hickey

I’ll perhaps get some heat for this but I don’t think reparations are a progressive policy. I see them in fact as a conservative policy. A well defined reparations policy would be an acknowledgement of past failures and be about taking responsibility for them. It’d be about paying back a debt rather than giving a hand out. These are all conservative concepts and sensitivities than progressive ones.

Kat L
Kat L
2 years ago
Reply to  Emre Emre

I can get on board with two conditions; no more griping. Ever. They take full responsibility for any societal failings after payment is made. Also, that Africa help with the payments since they profited from the sales.

Sean Penley
Sean Penley
2 years ago
Reply to  Emre Emre

“Progressive” is an inherently subjective term.
But politically speaking, it is a political movement with very specific beliefs, like the Tories or Labour. They have been embedded as a wing of the Dem party since the late 1800s, somewhat like how Labour and Tories have their sub-factions. Progressives briefly took power in the early 1900s, then retreated to the corners after WWI and Wilson’s administration, until coming out of the closet in force the last few years.
While their views have changed somewhat over time–thanks in part to yet more German socialists arriving in the 1920s to add some new dynamics to the ideas of that first German socialist who inspired the movement–they have been generally consistent. One of their biggest changes, an idea from those helpful Germans, was to drop the old-style racism of the movement from when it was in power and instead to co-opt and effectively weaponize minorities. Identity politics is essentially a century-old movement. It just didn’t gain much ground until recently, and that it has now is yet another contribution of those Weimar refugees: institutional capture. It is a slow process, it takes decades to change the face of a nation’s institutions without a violent revolution (and even the French Revolution struggled with it), but universities and government agencies are almost tailor-made for this kind of soft-revolution: generally protected against economic shocks and consequences of poor performance.
And yes, part of this shift from progressives thinking other races inferior to putting them on a pedestal (except Asians) was to take up the idea of reparations. Funnily enough the article references Hispanics, but them being treated as a different ‘race’ is in itself a somewhat indirect progressive accomplishment. They were just listed as ‘white’ until the late 20th century, at least officially.
You might say they don’t fit the title of their movement. Well, like I said, ‘progressive’ is inherently a subjective term. But more importantly, what would set them apart from say, Labour, who continue to hold that name while disdaining the working class? How many Conservatives seem to consistently vote for ideas that don’t seem particularly conservative? The Democrats seem to regard democracy as a dangerous way of running a country. In politics, names are simply that–they are not necessarily descriptions.

Emre Emre
Emre Emre
2 years ago

I was under the impression Democrats have a “woman problem” since that was the remaining white working class demo still voting Democrat and have started defecting now. Women were meant to be part of the Rainbow coalition surely?

Last edited 2 years ago by Emre Emre
LCarey Rowland
LCarey Rowland
2 years ago

The rough and tumble working people of these United States will not elect a man who has a husband.

William McClure
William McClure
2 years ago

Mayor Pete may have the credentials for POTUS, but he lacks the guts needed to sustain a successful presidency.

Many in America’s Midwest just might see Pete as he truly is: the south end of a north bound horse…

Will Cummings
Will Cummings
2 years ago

I’ll tell you what’s needed. We need to encourage the nobility to return to the venerated practice of dueling, an aristocratic artform eschewed by the hoi polloi that historically worked Darwinian wonders in the ranks of the ruling caste. The vital need for dueling in the upper strata is made clearly evident by those who have emerged to prominence since its cultural demise. Bring back the slap in the face and the bellowed challenge. Let’s have pistols at dawn and thrill to the deadly thrust of the rapier in the hand of the master swordsman. CSPAN ratings would go through the roof and the Plebes would love it!

Amos Sullivan
Amos Sullivan
1 year ago

I have never met a gay man I felt wasn’t mentally unbalanced, Buutplug is a fraud who has no idea what reality is.