Pete Buttigieg Changed the Game for LGBT Americans

Growing up as a closeted gay child and then youth I - and so many others - had no role model of what a successful and accepted gay person could be.  I was raised in a Church which - hypocritically as it turned out - condemned homosexuality even as larger society ostracized gays and fears for one's career and physical safety were common.  My coming out journey was extremely difficult and included two suicide attempts.  Fast forward to 2020 and Pete Buttigieg has provided a role model and a sense of what is possible for countless LGBT youth, particularly those growing up in backward red states.  In some cases they may need to wait and flee once they reach the age of legal majority to follow their dreams, but Buttigieg has shown them that it can be done - even in a place like South Bend. The irony is that some far left gays continue to whine that Buttigieg "isn't gay enough" or isn't "the right kind of gay," but Mayor Pete has done what many of these preening self-styled "leaders" of the LGBT community have failed to do: set a role model and provide a sense of hope.  A piece in CNN looks at Mayor Pete's contribution.  Here are article highlights:

As Pete Buttigieg's husband addressed an audience of campaign supporters, family and friends gathered here in South Bend late Monday night, he told those gathered that, when his husband, their mayor, first asked what he thought about a presidential run, he laughed. And then he reflected on their still-young marriage.

"Pete got me to fall in love with myself again," Chasten Buttigieg reflected. "And I told Pete to run, because I knew there were other kids sitting out there in this country, who needed to believe in themselves too."

"You changed lives!" a supporter shouted.

"Yes, we did," Buttigieg replied, getting choked up. "Together."

And then, for the first time in American history, a presidential candidate took the stage, kissed his husband and ended his campaign. The moment was a fitting coda to Pete Buttigieg's historic campaign, one that both tested the nation's still evolving acceptance of LGBTQ Americans and represented a giant leap forward in the eyes of scores of those inspired by Buttigieg's candidacy.

[F]or LGBTQ Americans, who only nationally gained the right to marry in 2015 and still face the threat of workplace discrimination for their sexual orientation or gender identity, Buttigieg was more than a longshot candidate from a mid-level midwestern city -- he was a presidential contender of their very own.

From the start, Buttigieg's sexual orientation and faith set him apart from the standard Democratic presidential hopeful -- and especially his ability to square the two seemingly contradictory aspects of his identity.

At a CNN town hall in March 2019, he addressed both, creating a national moment largely credited with catapulting the mayor from obscurity to ubiquity.

During the town hall, Buttigieg, an Episcopalian, tore into Vice President Mike Pence for tying his conservative views on same-sex marriage to his faith.

"His interpretation of Scripture is pretty different from mine," Buttigieg said. "His has a lot more to do with sexuality and, I don't know, a certain view of rectitude. Even if you buy into that, how could he allow himself to become the cheerleader of the porn star presidency?" . . . . "Is it that he stopped believing in Scripture when he started believing in Donald Trump?"

That answer, and the rest of his town hall performance, caught fire, earning him praise from across the political spectrum . . . . . But Buttigieg's momentum surprised gay voters the most -- voters like Robert Moore of Dallas, Texas.

"Remember, marriage equality came pretty recently, you know, and it's a big jump from we can get married and be private citizens and be on our own, to being president of the United States," Moore told CNN in February. "And this is somebody that they are wanting to embrace, and not just embrace, but put up to lead them? That's a whole different game."

Perhaps more significantly, it signaled a new way to counter arguments against LGBTQ equality from the religious right -- with an appeal equally grounded in religion from the left. But Buttigieg's appeal to moderates on religion would prove representative of a larger theme throughout his campaign.

In attempting to expand the Democratic Party tent to independents and Republicans fleeing Trump, Buttigieg enraged a vocal, progressive wing of the Democratic base, who accused the mayor of compromising party ideals for votes in purple states. The anti-Buttigieg sentiment in the LGBTQ community also rankled Buttigieg's gay supporters.

"They're demanding too much," said Jerry Birdwell, a Texas voter who traveled to New Hampshire to observe the primary process there last month. "I personally think that if they make a comment like that, he's not gay enough, so to speak -- that's absurd...we're looking for a man that's going to represent the country, and he is the type of person who, his sexuality has nothing to do with his ability to run a campaign and to serve." Before thousands of Iowa Democrats, he drew a direct line between the case for a Buttigieg presidency and his own LGBTQ experience.

"I have seen what America can do, and so have you. After all, you're looking at someone who, as a young man growing up, wondered if something deep inside of him meant that he would forever be an outsider, would never wear the uniform, never be accepted, never know love," Buttigieg said. "And now you are looking at that same young man, a veteran, a mayor, happily married, asking for you to vote for president of the United States."

On the trail, Buttigieg took care to always note that while the LGBTQ community has made strides, there remained a great deal of work left to do. And he didn't gloss over that truth either, especially in Iowa, where, a week before the caucuses, he confessed that while he was "obviously thrilled by the progress that brought me the right to marry," the idea that marriage equality "meant the struggle for equality was, you know, done" is "just not true." Former US Rep Barney Frank, the first member of Congress in a same-sex marriage, agrees with Buttigieg's view, but thinks history will view Buttigieg's unsuccessful bid for president as historic in its own right.

"It's one of the most important moments in American history, not just of the LGBT issues," Frank told CNN in an interview after Buttigieg ended his campaign. "It is a sign that the prejudice against sexual minorities has diminished even more than we had thought. ... It further advances the fight against prejudice, because he was so good at it, being so articulate and doing as well as he did." "I never thought we'd have a gay candidate for president in our lifetime, no," said Paul King, who attended Buttigieg's rally in Raleigh, North Carolina with his husband, J.D. Brickhouse, just one day before Buttigieg would drop out of the race. "But I never thought we'd have civil rights in our lifetime either. It means a lot. Nobody who hasn't experienced growing up gay in America would understand how much that means."

What does it mean? I'm having the chance to vote for a gay man for president," Brickhouse chimed in bluntly.

For Annise Parker of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, which seeks to elect LGBTQ candidates up and down the ballot, Buttigieg's candidacy filled a more urgent need."I believe that he literally saved lives," Parker, president and CEO of the group, told CNN Thursday.

"We still have a horrible problem with internalized homophobia and suicide, leading to suicide within our community, and by seeing Pete there doing so well and speaking directly to disenfranchised young people, I know he had an outsized impact for them. I know what all of our candidates and elected officials do for younger LGBT people and how they provide hope, how they provide inspiration. He did that on steroids."

Buttigieg's run also afforded LGBTQ Americans a once unimaginable national visibility. And 9-year-old Zachary Ro of Lone Tree, Colorado, used his one chance to ask Buttigieg a question to enlist the former mayor's help in coming out to the world. "Thank you for being so brave," Ro wrote in a submitted question before a Denver rally in February. "Would you help me tell the world I'm gay too? I want to be brave like you."Later at the rally, as Ro approached the stage, the crowd of hundreds whipped themselves into a frenzy of cheers and encouragement, high-fiving the boy and chanting, "Love is love!"

"You will never know who's taking their lead from you, who's watching you and deciding that they can be a little braver, because you have been brave," Buttigieg told the 9-year old, visibly moved. "When I was trying to figure out who I was, I was afraid that who I was might mean that I could never make a difference. And what wound up happening instead, is that it's a huge part of the difference I get to make." "You'll never know whose life you might be affecting right now, just by standing here," he said. "There's a lot of power in that."

Pete Buttigieg Lasting Impact for Kids Who Are Different

For many in the LGBT community Pete Buttigeg's decision to end his presidential campaign was bitter sweat.  While his reasoning to withdraw made sense, to see the first openly gay presidential candidate to achieve a high level of success to end his campaign still hurt.  That said, Buttigieg has done an amazing job in setting an example for LGBT youth and others deemed "different" by mainstream society. In fact, Buttigieg made some moving statements which can be found here.  One can only hope that across America LGBT youth be they in rural red states or in reactionary family clinging to religious based ignorance will take hope from "mayor Pete's" example.  I am from and older generation that faced job loss and endless quantities of self-hate, so I hope Pete Buttigieg's example will help many see a positive future despite short term travails.  The Advocate looks at Pete's amazing example.  Here are highlights:

History-making candidate Pete Buttigieg ended his presidential campaign Sunday afternoon. Shortly after, he delivered a speech in his hometown of South Bend, Ind. in which he spoke about the impact of becoming the first gay candidate to get as far as he did in a race for the presidency. 

"We sent a message to every kid out there wondering if whatever marks them out as different means they are somehow destined to be less than, someone who once felt that exact same way can become a leading American presidential candidate with his husband at his side," Buttigieg said to a cheering crowd in a speech that followed an embrace and a kiss with his husband Chasten Buttigieg. 

The move to drop out came after finishing fourth in the South Carolina primary, which overwhelmingly went to Joe Biden. 

"The truth is the path has narrowed to a close," Buttigieg told the crowd in South Bend. "Therefore, it's time for him to step aside." 

As one who was racked by self-hate for many years while in the closet and who had two serious suicide attempts along the path of my coming out journey, I hope that Pete Buttigieg's example will save many LGBT youth and others from experiencing the self loathing and at times hopelessness that I and others felt.  Pete will always be a hero to me. As long time LGBT activist Evan Wolfson said. “Americans responded to these urgently needed qualities, and to Pete’s demonstration that gay people can be just as talented, just as effective, and just as patriotic as anyone."

Buttigieg, Klobuchar and O'Rourke Endorse Biden

I continue to worry whether Joe Biden has it in him to defeat Donald Trump if Biden is the Democrat nominee.  Those worries pale, however, compared to my worries of the 2020 presidential results if Bernie Sanders is the Democrat nominee.  While I might well hold my nose and vote for Sanders while gagging on the verge of vomiting, I suspect many voters will not do so - especially in the half dozen key states that will decide the Electoral College results.  From the outset, Pete Buttigieg said his goal was to see Trump defeated and now, he along with Amy Klobuchar and Beto O'Rourke  have all endorsed Joe Biden in the hope of stopping Sanders and a catastrophe in November. Indeed, I have already received emails from Buttigieg's impressive online campaign soliciting donations to the Biden campaign.  It will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow on Super Tuesday.  Personally, I hope Sanders gets a severe drubbing (I told the Sanders campaign which had been texting me to delete me from all of their lists).  A piece in the New York Times looks at these latest developments: 

In a last-minute bid to unite the moderate wing of the Democratic Party, Senator Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg on Monday threw their support behind a presidential campaign rival, Joseph R. Biden Jr., giving him an extraordinary boost ahead of the Super Tuesday primaries that promised to test his strength against the liberal front-runner, Senator Bernie Sanders.

Even by the standards of the tumultuous 2020 campaign, the endorsements from Ms. Klobuchar and Mr. Buttigieg — and their plan to join Mr. Biden at a rally in Dallas on Monday night — was remarkable. Rarely, if ever, have opponents joined forces so dramatically, as Ms. Klobuchar and Mr. Buttigieg went from campaigning at full tilt in the South Carolina primary on Saturday to teaming up on a political rescue mission for a former competitor, Mr. Biden, whom they had once regarded as a spent force.

Rather than delivering a traditional concession speech, Ms. Klobuchar told associates she wanted to leverage her exit to help Mr. Biden and headed directly for the joint rally. Mr. Buttigieg, for his part, endorsed Mr. Biden at a pre-rally stop on Monday evening; he said Mr. Biden would “restore the soul” of the nation as president. And Mr. Biden offered Mr. Buttigieg the highest compliment in his personal vocabulary, several times likening the young politician to his own son, Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015. [T]he crucial question hanging over the fast-moving events was whether any of it would make a difference in Tuesday’s primaries across 15 states and territories, including the critical battlegrounds of California and Texas. Mr. Sanders signaled on Monday that he was ready for a fight against Mr. Biden, and perhaps a long one, if neither man can achieve a decisive early advantage in a nomination fight that still includes Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York City. As news emerged of the shift of centrist support toward Mr. Biden, Mr. Sanders projected confidence and defiance, dismissing it as a phenomenon of “establishment politicians” supporting one another. That Ms. Klobuchar and Mr. Buttigieg decided to align against Mr. Sanders reflected their assessments of him as a general-election candidate: Both have warned he could lose to Mr. Trump, skeptical that his liberal policy agenda would win him broad support in battleground regions like their Midwestern base.

But the one-two punch also involved their own political interests, since leaving the race spared Mr. Buttigieg and Ms. Klobuchar the possibility of a wilting finish on Tuesday.

It is not uncommon for former presidential rivals to endorse each other later in an election season: The vanquished John Edwards helped Barack Obama conquer Hillary Clinton in 2008, for instance, and in the 2016 Republican primaries, Donald J. Trump earned a crucial seal of approval from an adversary he had handily trounced, Chris Christie.

In that 2016 race, some Republican leaders wanted other candidates to drop out early and unite behind one stop-Trump contender; that never happened . . . .

#NeverSanders

With Buttigieg Out, Who Will Virginia Moderates Back

I'd be lying if I said I was not disappointed that Pete Buttigieg has ended his presidential campaign.  I'd also be lying if I said I did not have any animosity towards black voters - who expect gays to support their rights and vote for black candidates but never see the situation as a two way street - who rejected Buttigieg, most likely because blacks remain the most homophobic of any demographic save white evangelicals. I'm sorry, but I am simply over this constant double standard.  Meanwhile, with Buttigieg's decision, the question becomes who will moderate Virginia suburbanites support if, like me, they find Sanders' far left socialism a non-starter.  I have not decided who I will vote for on Super Tuesday other than it will NOT Be Sanders. First, a piece in the Washington Post looks at Buttigieg's decision to end his campaign.  Here are excerpts:

Pete Buttigieg, the 38-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Ind., who saw a meteoric rise from virtual unknown to top-tier contender and became the first openly gay candidate to make a high-profile presidential run, is ending his campaign.

The development marks an abrupt end to what was briefly an ascendant candidacy, as Buttigieg won the Iowa caucuses and came in second in New Hampshire. But despite attracting enormous attention, significant support and often enthusiastic crowds, there was no clear path forward toward the nomination.

Buttigieg struggled to win support from black voters, a key pillar of the Democratic coalition — a vulnerability that took center stage Saturday in South Carolina, where he finished fourth.

Earlier that day, his campaign held a call with reporters in which senior adviser Michael Halle and deputy campaign manager Hari Sevugan made the case that while Buttigieg likely wouldn’t win any of the 14 states that vote Tuesday, Buttigieg could still accumulate enough delegates to keep Sanders’s lead to a minimum.

“Essentially the reason he is suspending his campaign is the reason he started the campaign: His goal is to defeat the [Trump] President and bring a new kind of politics to our country,” a Buttigieg aide said. “He thought his candidacy would be best vehicle to do that. And when it became clear his candidacy was not the most viable vehicle to do that, he stepped aside to make sure [Democrats] could still achieve those things.” “Pete Buttigieg’s campaign was historic and he showed the world that Americans are ready to accept and embrace qualified LGBTQ public leaders. His candidacy came after decades of LGBTQ Americans fighting to be heard, be visible, and have a place in the American experience,” said gay advocacy group GLAAD’s President Sarah Kate Ellis in a statement. “Pete’s success will no doubt lead to more LGBTQ candidates in political races large and small.”

As for who moderate Virginians will support,  a piece in the New York Times looks at Sanders unpopularity among suburban voters.  Here are excerpts:

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — In the Trump era, the suburbs have been Democrats’ surprising superpower.

A revolt by college-educated voters, largely women, in suburbs from Virginia Beach to Oklahoma City, from Houston to Southern California, delivered the House majority to Democrats in 2018. Driven by anxiety over guns, health care and the environment, and recoiling from President Trump’s caustic leadership, suburban voters are widely seen as a critical bloc for any Democratic victory in 2020.

But there are some early signs that the rise of Senator Bernie Sanders, by far the most liberal Democratic front-runner since George McGovern in 1972, is causing stress with the party’s suburban coalition and especially its core of college-educated white women and older voters, many of whom are politically moderate.

And after Saturday night’s big win Joseph R. Biden Jr. in South Carolina, Mr. Sanders will face an invigorated former vice president as well as other moderates, like former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, in Tuesday’s primaries in Virginia, Texas, and other states with swaths of suburban voters.

While some women, including many teachers, “are all about Sanders,” Ms. Simonds said, others recoil from his sweeping proposals such as a government takeover of health care. “There are a lot of women who are very protective over health care and the current status quo,” she said.

Suburban women are especially important in battleground states like Virginia, which is seen as essential to any Electoral College majority for the party in 2020. Virginia has turned sharply toward moderate Democratic candidates in recent years; the losses of Republican candidates up and down the ballot in suburbia have produced more political change than arguably any other state.

Mr. Biden’s victory in South Carolina may reset the field going into Super Tuesday on March 3, when 16 states and territories vote.  . . . . In his victory speech on Saturday night, Mr. Biden took aim at Mr. Sanders as a divisive figure.

In a sign of Mr. Sanders’s vulnerability, a plurality of Democrats polled disagreed with some of his key positions: 44 percent said the private insurance system should be kept as it is, and only one in five supported canceling all student debt.

“It’s clear that the path to the majority for us in Virginia in 2017, 2018 and 2019 was Democrats picking candidates in the primary who could talk to independents and bring them to our side in the general election,” said former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who on Saturday endorsed Mr. Biden after his commanding South Carolina win. “In order to beat Trump, we need a nominee who is inclusive and can build a broad coalition.”

In a head-to-head matchup between Mr. Trump and the top Democrats in a recent Washington Post/ABC News Poll, Mr. Sanders performed the worst with college-educated white women.

There were potential warning signs for Democrats in the poll should Mr. Sanders become the nominee: Nearly one in five suburban Democrats said they would not support him against Mr. Trump in November.

“I don’t think Bernie can win,” said Pat Barner, a retiree here in Virginia Beach, the southern point in a crescent of suburbs running through Richmond to Northern Virginia, which have politically transformed the state. . . . . she feared he could not carry the state. “We’re not that liberal in Virginia,” she said.

A Sanders candidacy might threaten the 2020 prospects of two vulnerable Democratic congresswomen in Virginia who won Republican-held seats in the 2018 midterms: Representative Abigail Spanberger, a former C.I.A. officer who won a suburban district outside Richmond; and Representative Elaine Luria, a retired Navy commander who won in Virginia Beach.

“Both Luria and Spanberger would not be eager to have to be running down-ballot with Bernie,” said Bob Holsworth, a longtime political analyst in the state. “They’re very concerned about the socialist label.”

Hopefully, Virginians will vote to end Sanders' campaign on Tuesday by backing moderate candidates.  I continue to believe that a Sanders nomination guarantees the re-election of Trump.

Pete Buttigieg and the Death of the Gay-Rights Movement

In a piece in New York Magazine that first looks at the parallels between Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn who lead the British Labour Party to its worst defeat in its history - and the possible catastrophe Sanders will bring to the Democrat Party - Andrew Sullivan then proceeds to look at the disintegration of the gay rights movement in America largely fueled by the far left within the LGBT community who are in the midst of attacking Pete Buttigieg for not being "gay enough."The wrath of these individuals also extends to every white male gay who is derided as either “hetero-normative” (gays who can pass as straights) or “homo-normative” (a person who looks and lives like most socially integrated gay men).  The irony is that it is largely these white gay males who fund the gay rights movement even as the far left believes gays need to support women, racial minorities, trans persons, disabled persons rather than a white gay man who somehow becomes part of the oppressor class simply by virtue of the skin color. I've seen this mindset take over Equality Virginia and other LGBT organizations which which have seemingly lost sight of their original agenda and in publications like Out Magazine which seems to cover anyone other than white gay males.  Sooner or later, those who have funded the movement will stop writing checks - I have to a large extent - and the far leftists will have nothing left.  It's insanity, but appears to be what the far left is best at: self destruction.  Here are column highlights:

One of the many problems with the concept of intersectionality is that it largely precludes activism on behalf of any single minority. Any particular identity is immediately overwhelmed by a variety of additional identities that supplant, complicate, or qualify it. And all these identities have their own hierarchy of oppressors and the oppressed, splintering them still further.

And so it is with what was once the gay-rights movement. A simple defense of the rights and freedom of homosexuals — people, biologically male and female, who are attracted to their own sex — has become impossible in an intersectional framework.

First off, critical queer theory deconstructed the old category of homosexual, which once rested on an apparently natural or innate attraction to members of the same sex. Homosexuality, they argued in contrast, is essentially a political act, a social construction, and the goal of queer politics is to subvert all such constructions, to advance wider and wider liberation. So there are homosexuals and then there are “queers.” The former are largely what queer theorists once lamented as “hetero-normative” (gays who can pass as straights) and are now called “homo-normative” (a person who looks and lives like most integrated gay men). The queer category tends to be defined by a desire to deconstruct the whole idea of nature, gender, and sex, embracing subversive alternatives to the family or the couple, and defining themselves by their performance of masculine or feminine roles, which they choose, in a bid to undermine the determinative role of biological sex. Then critical gender theory places women above men in the general hierarchy of oppression (oppression being correlated with status), deconstructing the classic coalition of gay men and lesbians as equals in pursuing homosexual rights. And then critical race theory adds a racial hierarchy as well, so that white gays are split from and subordinate to black gays, Jews become oppressors (because they have adopted “whiteness”), and Latinos climb up the intersectional ladder, as long as they identify as nonwhite. You can also add a host of other marginalized aspects of the human condition: the disabled, or poor, or undocumented, or HIV-positive … and on and on. When you buy into this vision of our society as defined entirely by oppression of people’s identity and with oppression having a near-infinite number of complicating hierarchies, the idea of a simple “gay rights” movement comes completely unraveled. And this is key, it seems to me, in understanding why “LGBTQ” activists have revealed such hostility to a figure like Pete Buttigieg. He does not deserve their support because he is white, male, cis, Christian, and has managed to be extraordinarily successful in life as well as politics. That places him quite high up on the oppressor matrix, his gayness notwithstanding. The first serious, openly gay candidate for the presidency does not represent “progress,” because he actually threatens “queer survival” — whatever that latter term actually means. In fact, Pete is, in their eyes, a regression — not because of his politics (which are very liberal), but simply because of his whiteness, maleness, cis-ness, and extraordinary talent. Queers should support a woman, a racial minority, a trans person, a disabled person, before they should support a white cis gay man. Here is Strangio elaborating this week on his point:

To all the white LGBTQ people celebrating the ‘milestone’ or ‘history-making’ of Pete, I strongly disagree. Nothing about white people who align with white supremacy to take power represents progress in my view.

Yes, Pete Buttigieg is in “alignment” with “white supremacy.” And that is a far more important thing to know about him than his homosexuality. What Pete has revealed, in other words, is that the gay-rights movement is dead. There are simply too many intersectional identities within the category of being gay to contain them in a movement simply for “gay rights.” What that means is that no gay organization can simply be about gays anymore. It has to be about race, class, gender, ability, immigration status, HIV status, and gender identity. At some point, well-meaning but naïve white, cis, gay men will come to understand that the movement they are largely funding is dedicated to their demonization and marginalization. And maybe, those not wedded to intersectional ideology will eventually decide to stop cutting the checks that makes this possible.

San Diego Union-Tribune Endorses Buttigieg

The animosity of Amy Klobuchar towards Pete Buttigieg on display last night during the Las Vegas debates will likely heighten in the wake of many seeing Buttigieg's performance as "more presidential" than hers and now Buttigieg's endorsement by the San Diego Union Tribune in a lengthy and reasoned editorial. While I remain conflicted in some ways as to which candidate to back - a friend had us to a Bloomberg event on Tuesday yet I have donated to Buttigieg - the Union-Tribune's reasoning makes the case as to why Buttigieg may be the one who can defeat Trump. Yes, the Trump base will never vote for a gay politician, but then again, they will never vote for a Democrat. Any Democrat.  Thus, the question becomes whether Americans of good will (I believe they are still in the majority) will vote for a gay man just as they voted for Barack Obama. We need a generational change in the leadership of this nation.  My generation and the even older one of many of  the Democrat candidates has left America truly damaged. Here are highlights as to why the Union-Tribune sees Buttigieg as the best choice:

Among the biggest questions in the 2020 presidential election are these:

How will liberals, moderates and independents winnow the Democratic field in the primary election on March 3 when California and 14 other states and territories vote on Super Tuesday?

If the economy stays strong through the general election, can any Democrat defeat Donald Trump, who is building that wall, claims to be the most pro-life president in U.S. history and who in three years has already ensured conservative dominance of federal courts for generations?

What would the United States even look like in 2024 if Trump is re-elected on Nov. 3?  It might be unrecognizable.

America is at a crossroads, even if that is of little or less concern to conservatives given their judicial and social gains under Trump. The sad truth is that four more years of President Donald Trump mean the White House will keep alienating allies, ignoring climate change, sabotaging institutions, tolerating cruelty on Twitter and in real life, and vilifying immigrants at the heart of the American story.

The alternative is a nation that rebuilds its good standing globally and restores decency to a presidency bereft of it while also moving toward a more expansive health care system, more comprehensive and humane immigration reform, reduced carbon emissions, increased gun safety, less national debt and an economy that works for everyone.

There are essentially two paths forward for Democrats, but one on the far left may alienate too many Americans to constitute progress. A middle road is more likely to bring Americans together.

Two candidates can lead the nation down that road with success: Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, 59, and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, 38. Both are relatively young, have a Midwestern appeal and will try to work across the aisle — Klobuchar has passed more than 100 bipartisan bills in three terms in the U.S. Senate, Buttigieg emphasizes “how it’s being done” is as important as what gets done, and underscores a need to not have “some kind of equal-and-opposite meanness.” Their approaches paid off in the first two states to vote. . . . . They would also be trailblazers, as the first woman president or first gay president.

It’s close, but in the view of The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board, Buttigieg is best suited to beat Trump because of his centrist policies, his military experience, his (admittedly small-scale) executive experience and the enthusiasm he’s inspired, with better fundraising and national polling, bigger campaign crowds and more news coverage than Klobuchar. He has shown he can manage a national campaign successfully. And in a nation that only legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, his message of generational change could actually inspire change.

Of the six strong Democratic candidates left, half are 77- or 78-year-old men, two are women, one of whom is 70, and then there is Buttigieg.  He may have only been mayor of the fourth-largest city in Indiana, but his fresh approach is transformational. He came out in an op-ed in a local newspaper while seeking reelection in 2015, choosing his ability to love openly over his presumed ability to advance more easily in politics.

At this early stage of the 2020 election, what is clear (and what fills us with hope) is that voters seem more eager to choose a moderate candidate than a progressive candidate to beat Trump. The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board, which is generally centrist and highly critical of Trump’s harsh rhetoric and evisceration of civic norms, evaluated the field this month and decided that our endorsement would go to either Buttigieg or Klobuchar.

Sanders inspires passion among those who want dramatic changes but in our view is too far to the left and there are lingering concerns about his health after a heart attack. Former Vice President Joe Biden was solid in that role, but he has been an uninspiring candidate every time he’s run for president; in this cycle, he has seemed uneven and out of touch with modern America and its political climate.

Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg . . . his overdue and ultimately inadequate disavowal of discriminatory stop-and-frisk policies, combined with comments in 2008 about the value of “redlining” and in 2015 about the value of Xeroxing descriptions of “male minorities 15 to 25,” and throwing young men of color “against the wall,” gave us greater pause.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is an intellectual giant with a mountain of policy proposals, displaying a tremendous preparation for the job, but her Medicare for All proposal ultimately proved a bridge too far for us, particularly when she mishandled the rollout of the details of its cost. Sweeping changes make sense, but they must be sold to the public, not imposed.

That led us to Klobuchar and Buttigieg. Importantly, she has something that he lacks: experience in Washington, D.C., and a long record of bipartisanship. But a report in The New York Times that she is a demanding and “often dehumanizing” boss is troubling. And her prior career as an aggressive prosecutor is worrisome in an era when the long-term fallout from the overly harsh punishment of redeemable people has given new momentum to criminal justice reform. . . . Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights lawyer and former president of the Minneapolis chapter of the NAACP, told The Washington Post. “Rather than taking steps to help mitigate some of those concerns and issues, during her tenure in office, her policies exacerbated the situation.”

Questions about African American support have also dragged on Buttigieg, whose record as mayor shows his top staff didn’t mirror his city’s diversity and includes a controversy with an African American police chief whom Buttigieg demoted. But the way Buttigieg addressed the fatal shooting of a black man by a white officer in his hometown during this campaign suggests he’ll approach tests directly — that he’ll show up and step up.

Michael Patton, president of the local NAACP chapter, supports him, saying, “Pete is someone who has done significant work in our community.”

Then there’s something progressives should keep in mind: Buttigieg is running as a moderate, but he points out his “Medicare for all who want it” proposal would make him the most progressive president in 50 years. He also points out that when Democrats have been elected to the White House in that span, they have been young, first-time presidential candidates who were new to the national scene and “calling the country to its highest values.” He offers a message of hope and change when the nation needs both.

There’s lots to like about Buttigieg, so let’s look at what may make some voters uncomfortable.

Should his age matter? French President Emmanuel Macron was elected at age 39. The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, and the prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, were 37 when they were elected. So … no, relative youth shouldn’t matter.

Is he inexperienced? While 16 presidents have been senators, three — Calvin Coolidge, Andrew Johnson and Grover Cleveland — have been mayors. Executive experience is executive experience. Buttigieg has it. And like all other presidents, he could choose smart Cabinet members.

Lastly, his sexuality. Buttigieg’s election would be something to celebrate because it would smash a ceiling and inspire a range of people to be themselves, but his sexuality is irrelevant to this job, to any job.

There are some people who will say Americans won’t elect a gay president. As they said of Barack Obama that Americans wouldn’t elect a black president. As they say of Klobuchar and Warren (and said of popular vote winner Hillary Clinton) that Americans won’t elect a woman president.

That is true only until it isn’t. . . . . People who discount Buttigieg because of his sexuality are just behind the times. People who discount him because of his youth or inexperience are just behind another candidate. That can change quickly, too, as votes get counted and campaigns get suspended ahead of a convention.

The New York Times Editorial Board asked Buttigieg how he would balance his devout Episcopalian faith with his duties as commander in chief, and he showed both his wisdom and his eloquence: “I think you have to accept the reality that you are living and working in a broken world just as we are all broken human beings and try to order your steps in a way that brings greater good than harm.”

That resonated with us, for its lofty rhetoric and grounding in humanity and hope: “greater good.”

It’s time for a generational change. It’s time to make America good again.  Vote Pete Buttigieg for president of the United States.

Bloomberg's First Debate is a Bust

Michael Bloomberg joined the Democrat debate stage for the first time last evening and it was not pretty.  Bloomberg has held himself out as the savior of the Democrats and the best person to defeat Donald Trump in November, yet his rivals were unmerciful in their attacks and Bloomberg confirmed what I had heard one commentator say: debates are not his strong suit. Who actually won the debate may be in the eye of the beholder since all took incoming fire from the rival candidates, but Bloomberg seemingly was the big loser. It is essential that Donald Trump be defeated in November, but I remain uncertain who is the best Democrat - which rules out Sanders who isn't really a Democrat and never has been - to take on Trump. A column in the New York Times looks at Bloomberg's trashing last evening.  Here are excerpts:

You can buy ads and saturate the airwaves with them. You can buy allies, especially with the right budget.

But you can’t buy a debate performance, and that’s why Mike Bloomberg’s on Wednesday night mattered so much. This was the man talking, not the money.

And the man needed rescue — from his bloodthirsty rivals and even more so from himself.

Making his first appearance alongside other contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, Bloomberg knew that he would be under furious attack and had clearly resolved not to show any negative emotion. But that meant that he often showed no emotion at all. Or he looked vaguely bemused, and that didn’t communicate the coolness that he intended. It signaled an aloofness that he very much needed to avoid.

He repeatedly — and laughably — suggested that he wouldn’t tear up nondisclosure agreements with women who have sued him or his company because they wanted the silence as much as he did. Elizabeth Warren hammered and hammered him on this point, but he wouldn’t budge, and that left the impression that he couldn’t budge. The truth would be too ugly.

Ugly: That’s the word for this ninth debate of the Democratic primary season. It had the fewest candidates — six — but the most nastiness, because those candidates clearly felt an urgency to diminish their competitors and elevate themselves before it was too late. A meager haul of votes in the Nevada caucuses this coming Saturday could effectively undo one or more of them; a poor showing on Super Tuesday less than two weeks from now would definitely be the end of the road.

So Pete Buttigieg went after Amy Klobuchar. Bernie Sanders went after Buttigieg. Joe Biden went after Sanders. Elizabeth Warren went after everybody, a Sherman tank bent on flattening everything in her path. And all of them went after Bloomberg. Dear God, how they went after Bloomberg. I’ve seen chum treated with more delicacy by great white sharks. It was the first time since Bloomberg announced his run for the presidency that he was within reach. For three high-spending, high-flying months, he campaigned essentially as a phantasm, ubiquitous in television commercials but averse to interviews, a supposed paragon of electability who had yet to put himself before voters, more idea than actuality, able to be seen but not touched.

But on Wednesday night, that changed abruptly. The apparition became flesh. And it was bruised from the get-go and bloodied soon after.

It was as if the candidates had made a private pact to eviscerate Bloomberg, who has spent hundreds of millions of his roughly $60 billion fortune to climb in the polls and is poised to spend hundreds of millions more before the nomination is decided.

Is he trying to purchase it? Absolutely. But, as he said at the debate, there’s a great cause behind that expenditure — his determination to deny Donald Trump a second term — and his funding of his own presidential bid at least means he’s beholden to no one.

Buttigieg arguably showed Bloomberg some mercy by denigrating him and Sanders together in one stroke. He called them “the two most polarizing figures on this stage,” one of whom thinks that “capitalism is the root of all evil” and the other of whom thinks that “money ought to be the root of all power.”

“We shouldn’t have to choose between one candidate who wants to burn this party down and another candidate who wants to buy this party out,” Buttigieg said. “We can do better.”

That line was obviously scripted but no less fascinating for it, because it affirmed the nutty extent to which Bloomberg, by dint of financial swagger and aggressive public relations, has created the narrative that he is the leading moderate alternative to Sanders and the most fearsome adversary for Trump. There’s no real proof yet of either. But it’s a notion with enough currency that Buttigieg, who actually leads the Democratic contest so far in terms of accrued delegates, felt the need to chip away at it.

Maybe Bloomberg never stood a chance, not given how prepared his rivals were to tear him apart and the particular exuberance and eloquence that Warren brought to the task. She savaged him not only for his mistakes but for his explanations of those mistakes, so that his apologies were all but erased.

You thought there was acrimony between Warren and Sanders? They’re honeymooning sweethearts compared to her and Bloomberg.

Sanders was the big winner of the night, because he entered the debate as the front-runner but evaded the kind of harsh treatment that a front-runner usually gets. Bloomberg got it instead.

So while Bloomberg warned direly that Sanders would be a disastrous nominee and possibly guarantee Trump’s victory, Bloomberg’s presence onstage may have bettered Sanders’s odds of getting to the general election. It certainly didn’t better Bloomberg’s.

There was another winner: Trump. The candidates flexed so much disdain for one another that they had a limited reserve for him, and I can imagine Trump and his advisers scouring the night’s transcripts for tips on how to take down whoever the eventual Democratic nominee is.

I don’t know how Democrats escape the uncomely chaos of their contest. But I do know that it’s not the ideal run-up to November, and Bloomberg’s billions aren’t magically going to make it all better.

Limbaugh Demonstrates the Continued Evil of Homophobia

Rush Limbaugh - a thrice divorced study in misogyny - who is a sycophant and cheerleader of Donald Trump (another man who cares little about the sanctity of marriage) recently attacked Pete Buttigieg and maligned his marriage to his husband. This after Trump awarded Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom, thereby severely denigrating the value of the award.  In doing so, Limbaugh - and by extension Trump - clearly was pandering to the anti-gay Christofascists who, along with white supremacists make up the core of Trump's base.  The entire episode underscores the continuing evil of homophobia and hate based religion belief that continues to foster it.  A piece at CNN reminds us of the work that needs to be done to rid the world of the evil of homophobia and those who continue to fan the flames of hate and bigotry.  Here are highlights: 

This week lawmakers in Iowa are debating whether a teacher can say "Pete Buttigieg is gay" in the classroom without first notifying parents.   I wish I were kidding but I am not.

The bill, which was introduced by 13 Republicans and advanced to the full House Education Committee on Monday, would require that lessons touching on the topic of sexual orientation or gender identity first be approved by parents, who would then have the option of sending a note to the principal excusing their children from class. It's the kind of story that supports the uncomfortable truth Rush Limbaugh spoke of during a homophobic rant he delivered on his radio show Wednesday, a week after Melania Trump hung a Presidential Medal of Freedom around his neck. Limbaugh mused about the discomfort some voters would experience watching Buttigieg kiss his husband on the debate stage, especially if he's standing next to, as he put it, "Mr. Man, Donald Trump."

As offensive as Limbaugh's remarks about Buttigieg were (and as ironic as his holding up Trump as the epitome of manliness were, considering it was the gay dude who volunteered to fight for this country and the straight one who pleaded "bone spurs"), the reality is homophobia is not theoretical. As the lawmakers in Iowa are showing, it is actively practiced. There will be people who will see Trump's many alleged infidelities (which he denies) as well as his well-documented bullying as quintessential masculine behavior and will dismiss Buttigieg's levelheadedness and affection toward his husband as effeminate. And because homophobia is ultimately an extension of misogyny — that is, to be female is to be less than a man — some of the same prejudices that women seeking the highest office face also plague Buttigieg. That doesn't mean fair-minded people should placate homophobes, misogynists and or racists to win an election — although that does happen. It only means that when a loudmouth like Limbaugh spews his vitriol, people should not be surprised. Remember, he would not be a millionaire if a significant number of people didn't agree with him. So, the question isn't whether or not we should chastise the blowhard messenger, it's what are we doing to challenge the hateful message? Prejudice did not go away.  The people who listen to Limbaugh did not and will not go away. This is not meant to conflate supporting Buttigieg with fair mindedness. Only to remove who he loves off the list of reasons to not vote for him. Limbaugh recently revealed he was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. He may survive it. He may not. But one thing for sure is the attitudes of those who delight in his hateful speech will remain.

So be mad at Limbaugh all you want. Just know there is a difference between how things are and how things should be. The bridge between the two is not constructed from denial and despair but rather acknowledgement of the enemy — in this case, it's prejudice — and a determination not to allow it to prevail.

In Politics, Some Gays Are Their Own Worse Enemy

I grew up in a politically involved family where politics were discussed at the dinner table and sometimes quite vocally at family reunions and other extended family gatherings. Despite sometimes strenuous disagreements (one might think a fight was ensuing at times), my relatives fortunately stayed focus on the bigger picture and did not believe in circular firing squads in politics.  The same cannot be said for many in the LGBT community. Most idiotic, of course are the gay Republicans who increasingly suffer from a blindness that a 1930's German Jew would have had if they had joined and actively supported the Nazi Party. Only a fool - or someone with significant self-loathing - supports a party that opposes ones rights and embraces extreme elements that say gays are "worthy of death" as one Christofascists recently said about Pete Buttigieg.  

Next in line for the idiocy award are those in the LGBT community who oppose Pete Buttigieg because he is not "gay enough."  It's not his policy proposals that are the problem. No, Buttigieg's big sin is that he, like myself and so many others I know, stayed in the closet for years and blended in with the straight world rather than being flamboyant and marching in a pride parade in only a speedo.  Meanwhile, through his presidential campaign, Buttigieg is engaging in an amazing level of default gay rights activism and is changing many minds along the way.  A piece in the New Yorker looks at the idiocy, resentment and perhaps hidden jealousy - in my view - of those in the LGBT community who seemingly think they have the exclusive right to be the arbiters of and to define what it is to be gay.  

What most disturbs me is that what one might call the radical gays continue to miss the reality that without the rest of us gays - the ones who live in straight residential neighborhoods, have joined once exclusively straight social institutions and to an extent blended, if you will - have been a major reason gays rights have progressed so much over the last two decades.  They also forget that when one doesn't live in San Francisco, Chicago, New York or other ultra-liberal cities, being a radical revolutionary can be downright dangerous. Here are article excerpts that try to make excuses for those who once again prove to see themselves as superior and in the process are their own worse enemies, show that they cannot see the forest for the trees, and make the rest of us gays look ridiculous:

By now, you may have heard that some queer people think that Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and a current contender for the Democratic Presidential nomination, is not gay enough. Unless you are immersed in this conversation with other queer people, you may have thought, “That’s ridiculous.”

The notion that some of us think Buttigieg is not gay enough has an identifiable relationship to the facts, which are that, for the purposes of this discussion, people who grew up queer in this country fall into two distinct categories of experience. One is the experience of never fitting in, being bullied by classmates for the way you walk, the way you look in clothes, the way you hit or fail to hit—all the things that set you apart before you have language to describe them. . . . . Millions of people have had a version of that experience.

And then there is the other experience, the life of blending in, only to surprise your classmates—or, more likely, former classmates who follow you on social media—with the revelation that you are gay. I am not arguing that one category of experience is worse or more difficult or painful than the other. [But, of course, she is doing so]. There are people who revel in their specialness from an early age, and there are people who fit in but feel tormented by their deep secret. I am saying only that these two kinds of experience are very different. . . . . Recently, a friend mentioned that, after thirty years of teaching, she had mentioned her wife in class for the first time, surprising her students with the revelation that she was gay—and I found myself momentarily marvelling at having the option to come out to one’s students or not.

As part of his campaign, and in developing his political persona, Buttigieg has repeatedly told a compelling story about his coming out. His is the story of someone who blended in and was therefore able—or, one might say, forced—to choose the circumstances and timing of his coming out. He chose to wait a long time: until after he graduated from college, after he had served in the military, after he had been elected mayor. He has made it clear that he feared that, if he had come out sooner, his political career might have suffered.

He also waited until after attitudes toward homosexuality had changed and same-sex marriage had become legal in more than half the states and was recognized by the federal government—all thanks to the courage and work of people who came out before Buttigieg did. Then, in 2015, he had the chutzpah to write an op-ed titled “Why Coming Out Matters,” in which he praised himself for “putting something this personal on the pages of a newspaper.” Many a reader might have wondered, as I did when my friend mentioned her relationship with her students, what it must be like to have the option of not being exposed.

Again, I am not saying that L.G.B.T. people who don’t pass are somehow morally superior to L.G.B.T. people who do [But, of course, she is doing so]. But these two distinct experiences are in some ways correlated with two divergent tracks in L.G.B.T. politics. One kind of queer politics is rooted in ideas of liberation, revolutionary change, and solidarity. . . . . The strategy of this brand of politics is to work across differences to bring about change.

The other, more mainstream, and often more visible kind of L.G.B.T. politics aims to erase difference. Its message to straight people is “We are just like you, and all we want is the right to have what you have: marriage, children, a house with a picket fence, and the right to serve in the military.” The vision of this politics is a society in all respects indistinguishable from the one in which we live now, except queer people have successfully and permanently blended in. To be sure, all kinds of queer people have been involved in both kinds of queer politics. But the politics of being “just like you” leaves out the people who cannot or do not want to be just like conventional straight people, whether in appearance or in the way we construct our lives and families.

Buttigieg embodies the second kind of gay experience and the second kind of gay politics. In a beautiful essay published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Greta LaFleur, a professor of American studies at Yale, analyzed a photograph of Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten, that appeared on the cover of Time magazine in May of last year. “This photo is about a lot of things,” LaFleur wrote. “But one of its defining features is its heterosexuality. It’s offering us the promise that our first gay first family might actually be a straight one.

Buttigieg is the ultimate candidate of the country’s post-2016 trauma. He is not a woman. He is not a socialist. He is decidedly not a revolutionary. He does not make big, sweeping promises, except one: that nothing much will change, only Donald Trump won’t be President. “What I like about Mayor Pete is that he is not a strong ideologue,” Tod Sedgwick, a [straight] volunteer who had gone to New Hampshire to canvass for Buttigieg, told me.

What makes Buttigieg an easy and reassuring choice for these older, white, straight people, and a disturbing possibility for the queer people who seem to be criticizing him for not being gay enough? It is that he is profoundly, essentially conservative. He is an old politician in a young man’s body, a straight politician in a gay man’s body.

In truth, Buttigieg is proposing big changes should he be elected and just by his success to date  in the primary contest has raised gay acceptance to a level most of us would not have believed possible not many years ago.  As for the gays who attack Buttigieg, whether they know it or not, they are attacking the rest of us gays who according to the radicals suffer from the cardinal sin of having blended and wanted some of the same rights as the straight community enjoys. Sadly, they are blind to the reality that they need us more than we need them.