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Drew Magary

The Hater’s Guide to Mayor Pete

Pete Buttigieg has campaigned on a pledge to build unity. That’s just a pledge to do nothing.

Drew Magary
GEN
Published in
6 min readNov 6, 2019

Credit: Scott Olson/Getty

YYou know, at least Sarah Palin had the common courtesy to run an entire state before pretending she was a figure of national importance. That hasn’t been the case with fellow small-town mayor Pete Buttigieg, who has become the ascendant moderate in the Democratic primary race after butting into third place in Iowa caucus polling and giving a speech at the Liberty and Justice dinner in Iowa that, inevitably, stirred the souls of every Never Socialist currently operating in mainstream political punditry. Here’s a money quote from Buttigieg’s speech that surely got Chris Cillizza’s glasses steaming with ecstasy:

“I will not waver from my commitment to our values or back down from the boldness of our ideas…”

BUT…?

“…but I also will not tire from the effort to include everyone in this future we are trying to build — progressives, moderates, and Republicans of conscience who are ready for change. The time has come.”

That’s a telling quote because you believe it only if you’re a fucking sap. You believe that you can enact bold ideas but still get everyone to go along with them. You believe that…

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GEN
GEN

Published in GEN

A former publication from Medium about politics, power, and culture. Currently inactive and not taking submissions.

Drew Magary
Drew Magary

Written by Drew Magary

Columnist at GEN. Co-founder, Defector. Author of Point B.

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Holy shit, what a mean-spirited, lazy, bad-faith article. Am honestly blown away a little.

Love you Drew, but no. Regardless of what we progressives like to tell ourselves — scratch that: what we fellate ourselves with on a daily basis — it’s going to take SOME level of compromise to win in the purple states. I’m not talking about winning…