P E R S P E C T I V E : G u e s t V i e w p o i n t
Bashing Buttigieg
A 2018 appearance in Queery by Olympic swimming champion Tom Daley.
BY RICHARD GOLDSTEIN
I’m not going to vote for Pete
Buttigieg. Bernie Sanders is
more my style, ideologically
and temperamentally. But I’m
proud of Mayor Pete.
I’m proud that a gay man can be
open about his marriage to a man
and still get voters to take him seriously.
I’m proud that an ambitious
politician can rise in the wake of the
LGBTQ movement’s success. Gay
people have a potential for leadership
that only stereotypes and subterfuge
have repressed. Buttigieg’s military
career, his embrace of both his sexuality
and his faith, and his ability
to make people feel that they are being
intelligently addressed all shatter
tropes about homosexuals that I
spent many years fighting against.
His politics don’t jibe with mine, but
watching him pursue his goals so
confidently, I see the world my generation
of gay liberationists helped to
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create. That’s why I’m proud of him.
But lots of young people are riled
by his image as well as his agenda.
Because he’s their peer, but clean-cut
and instinctively trad, he’s the candidate
these progressives love to hate.
They’re a well-educated tribe, so it’s
no surprise that they’ve coined some
clever epithets about him. There’s
Petey Bourgeoise, a wordplay only
those who have studied French and
read Marx can parse. There’s Mayo
Pete, a wisecrack that may stick because,
like his critics’ view of him,
it is bland and white. But the most
damning dis echoes Elizabeth Warren’s
line of attack. Her followers call
him Wall Street Pete.
It may be true that, as one bank executive
has noted, “he’s the new candidate
of the young elite.” But Mike
Bloomberg is far better connected to
the wealthy, and Joe Biden would like
to be. Yet, they’ve escaped the wrath
of the woke. Why is Buttigieg such
a tempting target? The reason, I believe,
is not just his program or his
fundraising practices, but the way he
expresses his gayness. Some people
despise him for being wholesome.
Others resent him for being aggressive.
Both are responses to his sexuality.
There’s been no reckoning with
this reaction, partly because it’s
subtle and partly because his critics
are pro-gay and sometimes gay
themselves. The media haven’t delved
into the impact of Buttigieg’s identity,
other then noting that it may have
something to do with his low numbers
among Black voters. In fact, the
silence of white liberals is just as telling.
It seem like courtesy, but it’s really
avoidance, since his gayness is
present whether or not it’s addressed.
It inflects every exchange with his rivals.
When Biden calls Buttigieg “Mr.
President,” with a paternal wink,
he’s not just scoffing at a competitor’s
youth. Intentionally or not, he’s
gliding across the same slick terrain
that led Trump to dismiss Buttigieg
by wondering how he would deal with
Kim Jong-un. Veterans are usually
spared such patronizing language, so
why is it applied to him? Let me suggest
that it has something to do with
the word faggot. Where I grew up, the
f-word was hurled at any weakling,
gay or not. I’m afraid that association
with frailty still exists in the recesses
of many minds, ready to be tapped.
Though it was an asset for Trump,
Buttigieg’s inexperience is a liability
for him, because it resonates with a
stereotype that has yet to be overcome.
When Amy Klobuchar rails
about his rise despite a scant political
record, suggesting that he benefits
from the advantages of being a man,
she’s making a valid point, but she’s
also ignoring reality. No gay man is
fully vested in the perks of masculinity.
Even someone as straight-edge as
Buttigieg must deal with the disparagement
that afflicts all gay people.
Soldier or not, he’s still light in the
loafers. Too elfin for Air Force One.
Any progressive who sees him as
the “living, breathing embodiment of
white male privilege,” as one Democratic
consultant said, is forgetting
what it’s like to be gay.
Consider that, though questions
➤ BASHING BUTTIGIEG, continued on p.21
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