The Patriot Post® · The Peter (Buttigieg) Principle

Stop the presses! According to the Leftmedia, there'a new kid in town who’s “transformational,” “countercultural,” and Millennial. And if one is unaware of who sets progressive hearts aflutter, CNN Editor-at-large Chris Cillizza spells it out in no uncertain terms. “In 2008, it was Barack Obama,” he writes. “In 2020, it’s Pete Buttigieg.”

Who is Peter Buttigieg? The 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is the flavor of the month for a Democrat Party whose increasingly crowded roster of presidential candidates is reminiscent of a circus clown car — with no shortage of clowns. Yet to be fair, Buttigieg’s credentials stand out: He’s deeply religious, a military veteran, and a Harvard-educated Rhodes scholar who speaks seven languages.

Yet far more important for a Democrat Party obsessed with identity politics, Buttigieg is an openly homosexual man who is married. Even more “maverick-like,” Buttigieg eschews the Left’s reflexive hatred of fast-food franchise Chick-fil-A.

It is a hatred so intense the San Antonio city council banned the company from operating at the city’s airport. Two weeks later a similar ban was initiated by Democrat assemblyman Sean Ryan at Niagara International Airport in Buffalo, New York.

Buttigieg’s take? “I do not approve of their politics, but I kind of approve of their chicken,” he stated during an interview. He also joked about bringing the “gay community” and the company together. “So maybe if nothing else, I can build that bridge,” he added. “Maybe I’ll become in a position to broker that peace deal.”

Broker a deal? Perhaps the Rhodes scholar should have stated that government officials using their power to punish private corporations for their political or religious views is blatantly unconstitutional. Thus, no “deal” is necessary, other than one precipitated by a lawsuit filed by Chick-fil-A and a subsequent court ruling reaffirming the First Amendment.

Perhaps no one can expect any Democrat running for president to reaffirm that reality. Thus, when a candidate “kind of” approves of Chick-fil-A’s food, he becomes transformational — at least in contrast to those who no longer conceal their contempt for the nation’s “bitter clingers.”

Yet as a bitter clinger himself, one might expect more from Mayor Pete. In 2015, Buttigieg did stand against the progressive zeitgeist when he stated that “all lives” matter during his State of the City address.

But when he attended the Democrats’ shameful ring-kissing ceremony at racial arsonist and hate-hoaxer Al Sharpton’s National Action Network convention, he walked the assertion back, insisting he didn’t realize the phrase “was coming into use as sort of a counter-slogan to ‘black lives matter,’” he explained. “So, the statement … actually wound up being used to devalue what the Black Lives Matter movement was telling us, which was what we needed to hear, because, unfortunately, it was not obvious to everybody how black lives were being valued in the streets.”

Thus a contrite Buttigieg has “stopped using” the phrase.

Once again, a transformational candidate might have mentioned the uncomfortable reality that “how black lives were being valued in the streets” has far more to do with black Americans themselves than the police officers the BLM movement bash on a regular basis. A 2010 Bureau of Justice Statistics report revealed that 93% of black homicide victims from 1980 through 2008 were killed by black offenders. Moreover, FBI data from 2007-2012 coupled with a 2014 Wall Street Journal analysis reveals that for every black person killed by a white police officer, 71 blacks are killed by their fellow blacks.

Nonetheless, as Democrat night follows Democrat day, Buttigieg affirmed his commitment to establishing a commission to study … reparations.

Furthermore, despite his ostensible religious bona fides, Buttigieg is still elitist enough that he apparently hasn’t learned anything with regard to Hillary Clinton’s “deplorable” fiasco. Thus, he attacked Evangelical Christians, asserting that their “hypocrisy is unbelievable” because they support the president. And he thinks they were conned into doing so. “I think there was a cynical process where [Trump] decided to, for example, begin to pretend to be pro-life and govern accordingly,” Buttigieg added. “Which was good enough to bring many evangelicals over to his side.”

That such a “cynical process” has been embraced ad nauseam by Democrats who were for secure borders before they were against them, for “safe, legal, and rare” abortions before they were for abortion right up to the moment of birth and beyond, and for preserving traditional marriage before they were against it? And by Buttigieg himself, who was for “all lives matter” before he was against it?

Republicans “flip flop.” Democrats “evolve.”

But Democrats don’t merely evolve. Every transformation is accompanied by a self-conferred mantle of time-sensitive, nationwide moral legitimacy. In other words, you not only embrace their position but do so as soon as they do — or you’re a bigot.

It is precisely that odious combination of arrogance and condescension that alienates millions of Americans, yet Buttigieg embraces it. Those who eschew same-sex marriage? “People who are on what I would call the wrong side of this issue and of history probably don’t think of themselves as hateful,” he declares. “So we’ve got to make sure that they feel good about themselves in the process of coming to a more accepting view.”

How noble.

Yet reality will eventually intrude. As columnist Daniel Greenfield notes, a swooning media has so far failed to mention that Buttigieg runs “the most dangerous city in Indiana.” Moreover, Mayor Pete’s tenure has been less than transformative. “By 2017, shootings had risen 20% on Mayor Buttigieg’s watch, Greenfield adds. "Rapes increased 27% and aggravated assaults rose from 183 in 2013, the year before Buttigieg took office, to a stunning 563 assaults.”

Such inconvenient details — along with the fact that Buttigieg supports late-term abortion, eliminating the Electoral College, stacking the Supreme Court with 15 justices, a “path to citizenship” for illegals, gun control, and “crisis-level” attention paid to climate change begets an obvious question:

In a crowded field where virtually every Democrat supports the above positions — and worse — what makes Buttigieg the transformational candidate?

Legitimate credentials — plus homosexuality.

Yet even homosexuality may not be “intersectional” enough. Slate columnist Christina Cauterucci reminds us that “Buttigieg isn’t just gay — he’s also white, male, upper-class, Midwestern, married, Ivy League–educated, and a man of faith.” Thus, she wonders if a win for him would be “as historically significant and culturally meaningful as a win for a member of an underrepresented race or gender.”

Most Americans probably wonder if any candidate can survive the walk through the Democrat Party’s identity-politics minefield, and whether one’s political positions, or even the “content of one’s character” is part of the equation for picking the “right” presidential candidate — as in the candidate who best represents and embraces the party’s well-established hierarchy of victimization.

In reality, Peter Buttigieg, isn’t transformational. He’s a just another contender among a gaggle of equally underrepresented, historically significant and culturally meaningful characters in a Democrat Party determined to find the “Most Woke” presidential candidate.

Step away from the Chick-fil-A, Mayor Pete. It could cost you — big time.