Pete Buttigieg announced his candidacy for the presidential bid last month, and while that name doesn’t ring any bells like the other big names running for the Democratic Party, Buttigieg will stand as another voice of diversity for the 2020 election.
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Buttigieg is a 37-year-old, married gay man from South Bend, Indiana, making him the youngest candidate for the election. He publicly came out in 2015, the same year same-sex marriage was nationally legalized.
Buttigieg published an article in the Tribune Voices, titled “Why Coming Out Matters,” and writes, “The true compass that will have guided us there [the future] will be the basic regard and concern that we have for one another as fellow human beings — based not on categories of politics, orientation, background, status or creed, but on our shared knowledge that the greatest thing any of us has to offer is love.”
Buttigieg has been the mayor of South Bend since 2012 and served as an a Navy Lieutenant in Afghanistan. Though his age and title may mark him on a lower scale in terms of experience for presidential office, he explains in an interview with MSNBC that he has more political experience than the current president along with having more experience in the military than any other running candidate.
Buttigieg was asked in the MSNBC interview how left he defines himself on the Democratic spectrum. Although Buttigieg said he would classify himself as more “progressive,” he says, “I don’t find these labels very helpful.”
He explains his community is made up of diverse voters with some who voted for Obama, for Trump, for Pence and also for Buttigieg. Considering his demographic, he argues these labels don’t matter. What does matter is his values and politics and if they work.
On the battle between socialism and democracy, Buttigieg argues against labeling and says the term “socialist” doesn’t hold its definition anymore after it’s received so much negative propaganda.
Buttigieg says, “American capitalism is the most productive economic force known to man, but we also know that it can create massive inequality, and frankly, it can destroy itself if you don’t have, as one law school puts it, ‘the wise constraints that make people free.’”
He explains generations of people viewed there is a stark, divisive line with “communism and socialism on one side … and democracy and capitalism on the other.”
He says if ideas are good, and if they work, then those are the ideas the American government should consider, not the ones based on which ideas fall under certain categories.
“The biggest thing we have to ask ourselves is: If there is tension between them, do you care about capitalism more than about democracy, or do you care more about democracy than capitalism?” he said.
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