It takes one to know one.
Democrats need to reposition. They need an anti-elitist populist spokesman.
Pete Buttigieg. Yes, Pete Buttigieg.
Democrats are the party of educated managers and office workers. "Trust the science" is something Democrats say. "Listen to the people" is something Republicans say. Republican populism has taken aim at experts. It is time for Democrats to do the same.
Education level is a prime indicator of partisan identity. "Working people" are moving to the GOP. Their bosses, the managers with educations and office jobs, are moving to the Democrats. Republicans have the bigger half of the loaf.
Distrust of experts is bipartisan. There is ample justification for it. Wall Street "wizards" destroyed the economy with their mortgage fraud, then stayed wealthy by being bailed out by taxpayers. The supposed know-it-alls at the Fed have given us one asset bubble after another. Foreign policy experts at the State Department and military kept us fighting an un-winnable war in Afghanistan for 20 years, and it ended ugly. Even supporters of the CDC are frustrated with mixed signals and changes in COVID advice.
Democrats defend experts and expertise. The real world is messy. Things fall apart. Democrats, especially with COVID, send a message of "we know best," which sets them up for failure. This stance isn't working for Democrats. It is time to press reset. That can best be done with generational change and a party leader that calls for institutional change.
Pete Buttigieg attended Harvard, then Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He was a consultant at McKinsey. Now he is Secretary of Transportation. Buttigieg has the perfect resume for Mr. Meritocracy. He has excelled and has been fast-tracked. Buttigieg is the new version of Robert McNamara's "Whiz Kids," those best and brightest who carried out a failed war with Vietnam.
Isn't that as bad as it gets? Doesn't that put Buttigieg in the deepest of political holes?
No. It qualifies him as a change agent.
Buttigieg can do something brave. He can take aim at people like himself and his own mentors. He can tell the simple truth that the former generation of leaders made mistakes, that managers and experts have been wrong. He can say they have been insular and self-protective. He needs to say he wants to shake up and change out the very people he knows best. It takes a thief to catch a thief. It takes one to know one.
Buttigieg can say it's time for people to think outside the box. Some of his message can be regional. He can decry the error and insult imbedded in the notion of "flyover country." He can say he loves "midwestern values" and that he believes in "Minnesota nice." Buttigieg can include sharp criticism of academic elites at Harvard, Oxford, and McKinsey, the Ivies, the coasts. He's seen it. Praise universities in swing state Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. No need to put on duck-hunting clothes and borrow a shotgun. He is who he is, and he is a "traitor to his class." No one can dump on Harvard as persuasively as a person who excelled there.
Won't that cost votes on the coasts? In Massachusetts? In New York? No. Nobody resents snobbery as much as people closely exposed to the snobs.
Buttigieg must be willing to name names, face criticism, and show that he is resolute in the face of that criticism. That is the test of a change-agent politician. Does he stand firm in calling out error? Can Buttigieg say "You're fired?" That is what change agents do.
Americans are ready for change.
It’s so easy to love Pete.