Buttigieg: racist behaviors cannot be excused because they can be connected to economic issues

[Celerity]

So many false memes floating out there all of sudden since his polling numbers have taken off (3rd in Iowa for example zero to 11 percent in a month or so) People take snippets and pull quotes (see here for instance https://www.democraticunderground.com/128733687 of a Twitter troll trying to do just that and Wonkette slapping them down) and try to turn it into some binary, simplistic misrepresentation or phoney 'gothcha' moment that dismisses even moderately deep thought and does nothing to advance our party in terms of drilling down to not only root problems, but intelligent solutions to those very problems as well. It turns into a food fight that does a disservice to everyone, not just Buttigieg.

Buttigieg: “I don’t want this to slide into the idea that some of these racist behaviors can be excused because they can be connected to economic issues.

How Democrats can defeat Trump and his ugly ideas, according to Pete Buttigieg

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/03/19/how-democrats-can-defeat-trump-his-ugly-ideas-according-pete-buttigieg/?utm_term=.3d338b3fbcea

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Plum Line: There’s a genre of half-baked punditry which holds that working-class whites supported Trump in part because they perceive immigrants as a threat to them, economically or culturally. Indiana is a major Trump state. What’s your perception of the view of immigrants in Trump country?

Buttigieg: You might have followed this widely publicized case involving a small-business owner from Granger, the next community over, very conservative. This guy was an important part of the community, undocumented, went in for an annual ICE visit and didn’t come back out. The fiercely protective response came mostly from white members of the community who were conservative and largely voted for Trump, but did not view what he was talking about as going against somebody like Roberto, who they loved. Yes, you have a lot of people in my part of the country who feel we’re spending too many resources on immigrants, even though that’s inaccurate and immigration subsidizes us. But it doesn’t necessarily apply to people you actually know and meet and see.

Plum Line: We’re seeing a rise in white nationalism and serious anti-immigrant fervor in some parts of the country, and also globally. Are you going to be addressing this in a comprehensive way? It occurs to me that the 2020 Democrats should go bigger on these issues.

Buttigieg: Absolutely. We need to recognize 21st-century threats. Cybersecurity, climate security and security in the face of white nationalism are all clear and present security threats that folks on the other side of the aisle either refuse to acknowledge or decline to do anything about. It’s extremely important for Democrats to very vocally talk about those threats.

Plum Line: How do you view white nationalism as a policy problem?

Buttigieg: In the narrow tactical sense, it’s something we need to stay ahead of and monitor the way you would any kind of violent radical movement from abroad. There’s a deeper phenomenon going on. As we see dislocation and disruption in certain parts of the country, from rural areas to my home in the industrial Midwest, and in the economy, this leads to a kind of disorientation and loss of community and identity. That void can be filled through constructive and positive things, like community involvement or family. And it can be filled by destructive things, like white identity politics. This is one thing well-intentioned job training programs often miss: If we’re not attending to that, then making sure somebody’s income is steady or replaced after their place in the economy is disrupted, that’s not really enough.

Plum Line: Can you talk about your broader sense of the role that this type of economic vulnerability plays in creating the conditions for the kind of communitarian collapse that creates an opening for sentiments like white nationalism to flourish?

Buttigieg: I don’t want this to slide into the idea that some of these racist behaviors can be excused because they can be connected to economic issues. But I do think it’s easier to fall into these forms of extremism when you don’t know where your place is. There’s this very basic human desire for belonging that historically has often been supplied by the workplace. It’s been based on the presumption of a lifelong relationship with a single employer. This isn’t just a blue-collar phenomenon. We’ve come to be pretty reliant on the way that your workplace explains who you are. That’s breaking down. That doesn’t have to be a soul-crushing thing, provided that there are alternate sources for community, identity, and purpose. In South Bend, we focus a lot on enlisting people in the project of the city itself. The sense of belonging can be very powerful, and we’re very fragile without it. It’s not accidental that some areas that have seen the most disruption in our social and economic life are those that are most likely to produce a lot of domestic extremists.


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Pete Buttigieg Is a Political Star. You Just Don't Know It Yet.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2019/03/pete-buttigigeg-has-a-better-chance-than-you-think.html


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Socialism vs. Capitalism. Buttigieg sidesteps this false choice: Like Elizabeth Warren, he believes in capitalism “as long as there’s a strong rule of law around it.” He’s said that “the biggest problem with capitalism is the way it has become intertwined with power… the growth of business is eroding our democracy. Capitalism without democracy is Russia.” Buttigieg is conscious of his youth in this regard, and points out “we’re dealing with a whole [older] generation that was really shaped by a Cold War environment where socialism was treated as the same thing as communism. And the opposite of that was democracy and capitalism. So to be for socialism was to be for communism and against democracy and capitalism. Now you see how these things are really shaking loose from each other in a lot of ways. They’ve become unbundled. The big question is what you prioritize, and I prioritize democracy. People are trying to make sense of the distance between socialism in Canada, say, and Denmark versus Venezuela. And the answer is democracy.”

“Economic anxiety” and the rise of white nationalism. This is perhaps where Buttigieg is at his most eloquent, turning a venomously and now murderously divisive issue into an opportunity for growth. The Post’s Greg Sargent tweeted of his interview with Buttigieg that “he talks about race and the economy in a way that gets beyond the tedious ‘LOL but economic anxiety’ versus ‘not everyone in Trump country is racist’ debate.” In his recent Morning Joe interview, Buttigieg connected white nationalism to the rise of AI and automation to national service, the military, marriage, and career-hopping in 90 seconds.

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Immigration. Buttigieg is staunchly pro-immigrant. He wants to roll back Trump’s policies and raise immigration caps across the board, but he also manages somehow to embrace possibilities for reconciling that position with the right wing’s obsessive and baseless xenophobia: “You might have followed this widely publicized case involving a small-business owner from Granger, the next community over, very conservative. This guy was an important part of the community, undocumented, went in for an annual ICE visit and didn’t come back out.

“The fiercely protective response came mostly from white members of the community who were conservative and largely voted for Trump, but did not view what he was talking about as going against somebody like Roberto, who they loved.
“Yes, you have a lot of people in my part of the country who feel we’re spending too many resources on immigrants, even though that’s inaccurate and immigration subsidizes us. But it doesn’t necessarily apply to people you actually know and meet and see.”

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