For Pete Buttigieg, the first openly gay candidate to win a presidential primary or caucus, the threat of a second Trump term is both political and deeply personal.
Donald Trump has claimed to be a staunch supporter of LGBTQ rights but he has sought to undermine them through the courts. His vice-president, Mike Pence, has long opposed same-sex marriage.
“When you see your own rights come up for debate, when you know something as intimate and central to your life as the existence of your family is something that is not supported by your president, and certainly your vice-president, it’s painful,” Buttigieg says by phone from Traverse City, Michigan, where his husband Chasten grew up.
“It creates a sense of urgency that I hope will motivate many people – including a lot of LGBTQ younger people who maybe weren’t deciding so much how to vote as they were whether to vote – to see now is the time to vote like your life depends on it.”
Buttigieg, 38 and the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, was a breakout star of presidential politics in that seemingly distant pre-pandemic age that was in fact February. A Rhodes scholar at Oxford and war veteran in Afghanistan, he beat senators and a former vice-president to make history by narrowly winning the Iowa caucuses.
I’m mindful every day that my marriage exists by the grace of one vote on our supreme court
But after a crushing defeat in South Carolina, Buttigieg quit the race on 1 March, joining other moderates in throwing his weight behind Joe Biden. He is now launching his own podcast and prosecuting the case against Trump in the media – including on LGBTQ rights.
In June, the Republican party issued a press release that claimed “President Trump has taken unprecedented steps to protect the LGBTQ community”. Among its examples to support this were the selection of Richard Grenell as acting director of national intelligence, making him the first openly gay person to hold a cabinet-level position. Grenell has called Trump the “most pro-gay president in American history”.
But LGBTQ rights activists are not buying it, pointing out that Trump banned transgender people from the military and reversed many of their legal protections. He also opposes the Equality Act, that would protect LGBTQ people from discrimination in housing, the workplace and other settings, and his agencies are trying to give adoption and foster care agencies the right to discriminate against same-sex couples.
The power of Washington over individual lives was made viscerally clear to Buttigieg by the 2015 supreme court ruling that legalised same-sex marriage nationwide. Three years later he married Chasten, a junior high school teacher who became a popular figure on the campaign trail.
Buttigieg says: “I’m mindful every day that my marriage exists by the grace of one vote on our supreme court and we’ve seen the kind of extreme appointees that have been placed on the bench by this administration.
“We’ve seen how, despite sometimes paying lip service to the community, [Trump has] rarely missed an opportunity to attack the community, especially trans people, whether we’re talking about the ban on military service or issues around healthcare. But even for same-sex international adoption, this administration has taken us in the wrong direction and four more years would be a tremendous setback.
“Also around the world, we’re seeing, for example in eastern Europe, really disturbing setbacks in LGBTQ rights and equality without a strong United States leading the way in human rights, which requires leadership and credibility and also that we’re doing the right thing here at home. Without that, I think that people around the world are less safe.”
In Poland, for example, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the governing party, has said homosexuality represents a “threat to Polish identity”. When six towns declared themselves “LGBT ideology-free zones”, the European Union froze funding. But the US has been silent. Hosting Polish president Andrzej Duda at the White House in June, Trump said: “I don’t think we’ve ever been closer to Poland than we are right now.”
Buttigieg’s presidential run exceeded expectations but he never polled strongly among African Americans and his impact as mayor of South Bend on residents of colour came under frequent scrutiny. Then came the police killing of George Floyd and an uprising against racial injustice that left some white liberals agonising over how to be good allies – when to speak and when to stay silent?
Buttigieg, the son of a Maltese immigrant, answers with characteristic composure and lucidity: “The reality is it’s among white people that most of the change has to happen and it’s also important to recognise that defeating systemic racism is not only a matter of beating back the likes of the [Ku Klux Klan].
“There’s a lot that very well-intentioned white people who theoretically detest racism have to do or have to change or have to give up. I think that’s the spirit that has really been guiding this uprising and why this time really could be different. Of course, Black voices can and must be in the foremost roles but it also would not be fair to ask or expect Black people to have to do all the work because, again, it’s among white people that so much of the change has to happen.”
‘Biden will bring the country together’
Buttigieg was part of the most diverse field of candidates in primary history. Was he disappointed that, in the end, the nomination went to a septuagenarian white man?
“We had a really robust competition and I was proud to be part of a historically diverse field and ultimately Joe Biden earned this nomination and his victory by bringing a very diverse party together, as I think he will bring a sometimes divided country together. It is his speciality and instinct to heal and to unify and that’s what we need right now. But, of course, I’m also very excited about the diversity of the administration that I know he’s committed to building.
I’m very excited about the diversity of the administration that I know Joe Biden is committed to building
Buttigieg, who is half Biden’s age, adds: “One thing I really appreciate about him is how intentional and direct he’s been about the transformational presidency that he can build. You can see in the campaign the attention he puts into reaching out to different generations. I think his presidency will do the same.
“The message that I have, especially for younger voters, is the longer you’re planning to be here, the more you have at stake in some of these choices, which are effectively irreversible choices that are about to be made about the climate, the economy and the international community.”
Biden chose one of his Democratic rivals, Senator Kamala Harris, as his running mate, and it seems safe to assume that should he win, he will pick others from that deep bench for his administration. Asked if he would be interested, Buttigieg does not say no.
“Well, my focus right now is to do everything I can to help to make sure that there is a Biden administration. Of course, I love public service and if I can contribute in that way in the future, it would be very meaningful. But right now it’s all hands on deck to make sure we actually get there.”
In the meantime, he has started a podcast, released by the iHeartMedia network and set to run for 20 episodes. The premise of the title, The Deciding Decade, is that the 2020s will shape the life of America and the world for the rest of the century. Buttigieg looks forward to digging in more deeply on issues than TV soundbite culture allows.
As a polymath who plays the piano, speaks half a dozen languages and reads James Joyce, will he be able to resist cerebral topics?
“We’ll see how literary I can get away with being. We really want to have a mix of authors, athletes perhaps, cultural figures as well as political and policy people, because I really think this is going to shape us in a lot of different ways that have not been contemplated.
“It’s a painful time in the country and in the world, but these painful times are also often so fertile for new ideas and I want to make sure we’re looking beyond the kind of immediate political questions.”
Свежие комментарии