Pete Buttigieg in New Yorker

On Civil Rights: For LGBT rights, but doesn't presume to speak for everyone

On "CBS This Morning," no one mentioned that Buttigieg could be the first gay President. I asked whether he saw that as a measure of how quickly gay identity has become accepted. "Depends where you are. You quickly get plunged into this world where you're supposed to represent your community," but at that point he had little experience of the gay community. "Like, I will fight for the trans woman of color, but do I really know anything about her experience because I'm married to a dude?" Source: New Yorker magazine on 2020 Democratic primary Feb 9, 2019

On Government Reform: Get rid of the Electoral College

Buttigieg said, "We can't nibble around the edges of a system that no longer works." [One reporter] asked, "What is your idea that is so big that nobody would mistake it for nibbling around the edges?" Buttigieg answered, " Well, first of all, we've got to repair our democracy. The Electoral College needs to go, because it's made our society less and less democratic." He went on in this vein, suggesting that electoral reform was essential. Source: The New Yorker on 2020 Democratic primary Feb 9, 2019

On Health Care: His generation not put off by claims of "socialism"

The element of his generation is that it is essentially pragmatic. "Take universal health care. It is very pragmatic to look around and say, well, the countries that do this tend to be better than the countries that don't. The system we have isn't working very well; we ought to try this other system. Politically, it's never been possible, because it's been considered socialism, and socialism was a kill switch. Our generation did not live through the Cold War in the same way." Source: New Yorker magazine on 2020 Democratic primary Feb 9, 2019

The above quotations are from Columns and news articles in The New Yorker. Click here for other excerpts from Columns and news articles in The New Yorker. Click here for other excerpts by Pete Buttigieg. Click here for a profile of Pete Buttigieg.
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Page last updated: Oct 14, 2023