F**king Mondays: Pete The Jedi, "Weird" MAGAs, and the Annihilation of Truth
It's that time of the week again!
Welcome to another edition of “F**king Mondays,” our roundup of stories to get your week started!
Pete Buttigieg for VP?
If I could pick Kamala Harris’s running mate, I would take Pete Buttigieg in a heartbeat. Buttigieg was my preferred candidate in 2020, and I believe he would make not just a superb vice president, but one day a potentially great president. There are few politicians who I would regard as genuinely brilliant, and Buttigieg is one of them. You only need to listen to the Transport secretary speak to recognize just how powerful his intellect is, and his no nonsense blend of pragmatic liberalism is a real antidote to the extremism we see in modern American politics.
Buttigieg has Obama level brains, and almost Obama level charisma, but unfortunately he finds himself in an era where he is perceived being too gay for some voters, and too white for others.
Buttigieg’s major liability in the 2020 Democratic primaries was his inability to reach minorities, particularly black voters. This was partly to do with socially conservative attitudes in black communities, but also because black Americans tend to be highly pragmatic in their voting behavior (just as most black Americans viewed Hillary Clinton more favorably than Barack Obama in 2007, they likely saw Buttigieg’s sexuality in 2020 as a political liability and overwhelmingly supported Joe Biden).
America has been ready for a black and female president for some time now, but apparently not a gay one.
In 2024 however, things might be different. Kamala Harris’s candidacy energized Democrats like never before, and being gay is now largely uncontroversial to most Americans. While sexuality might be a factor in Kamala Harris’s VP vetting, it won’t be a huge one.
Primarily, Harris has to pick a running mate who can: 1) help her win crucial swing states, and 2) run the country if she has to step down. Buttigieg is clearly capable of the latter, but it isn’t clear whether he helps or hurts in the swing states. It is true that Buttigieg can’t do much do drive minority voters in places like Georgia and Arizona, and he would certainly turn off white religious conservatives.
However, there are intangibles that could give Buttigieg a real chance. Firstly, the former Mayor from Indiana is supernaturally talented communicator, and his ability to cut through Republican bullshit is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Just take a look at Buttigieg laying waste to Fox News’s Shannon Bream over the weekend:
Buttigieg regularly does this on Fox News, and the hosts are rarely able to land a glove on him. He has an almost Jedi like ability to mute his opponents while not coming across as an elitist snob. Buttigieg is just obviously smarter than most people, and any administration on earth would benefit immensely from that kind of brain power.
Kamala Harris’s ability to counter Republican propaganda is going to be crucial over the next 100 days, and while she is a good communicator, having someone like Buttigieg on the ticket would greatly enhance that skill. There may not be a direct pay off in any particular swing state (Buttigieg’s home state is a Republican stronghold), but his moderate politics and obvious competence could be very enticing for independents.
Most observers believe Buttigieg isn’t high on Harris’s priority list, but by all accounts, his recent media appearances have caused his stock to rise significantly. The two apparently respect each other greatly and like each other on a personal level.
If anything, the past few weeks of this election have shown Americans that almost anything is possible. A black woman and a gay man running for the White House on the same ticket would certainly be shocking, but by no means surprising.
MAGAs are worried about being called “weird”
It has taken Democrats over eight years to hit on a single word to define the MAGA movement that has taken over the GOP, but they now have one. Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota called Republicans “weird people on the other side” last week, and the term has now become viral. So viral that prominent Trump surrogates are now freaking out about it:
For a Trump supporter to be chastising Democrats for being “juvenile”, you know the word has hit a nerve. Why? Because they obviously are weird. Outside of the white supremacist psycho wing of the MAGA movement, the rest of them are just, well, weird, including people like Vivek Ramaswamy. They believe in a fantasy world created by Donald Trump, despise women, obsess over trans people, and believe drag queens are the greatest threat to Western civilization. Their intellectual heroes consist of maladjusted billionaire conspiracy theorists and discredited psychologists who make a living peacocking on Youtube:
Democrats really need to hammer this message home in the coming months. Don’t be like those guys. Because they really are fucking weird.
The annihilation of truth
I posted this quote from great German philosopher and historian Hannah Arendt on Substack Notes over the weekend and it has gone viral (apparently I’m on a bit of a run!):
I think the quote hit for a number of reasons, but mostly because so many people are aware when they are being gaslit by the growing fascist movement in the US, but don’t know how to respond to it. Arendt, who wrote so incisively on the nature of totalitarianism, echoes other great thinkers who have lived under dictatorships. “The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda,” wrote Russian dissident and chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov. “It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.”
This is exactly what Trumpism is doing to America. It has created vast swathes of the population who can no longer distinguish between truth and fantasy, and who now regard their political opponents as “vermin”. Their critical thinking has been destroyed, and the rest of us now how to contend with an ideology entirely detached from logic or reason. This is why Trumpism is so dangerous, and why it must be smashed in November. It cannot be reasoned with, and if it isn’t forcefully challenged, it will metastasize to the point of no return.
It can be exhausting listening the incessant lies coming out Donald Trump’s mouth, but it is necessary to remind yourself that it is entirely deliberate. Trump and the crazies in the Republican Party want you to tune out, to stop engaging in politics, and to believe that both sides are “just as bad”. The only way out of this mess is to defend the truth and counter the lies with as much energy as you can muster.
Have a great week!
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This is exactly why I’m a fan of the pick.
People will *start* voting for the general election in October.
Picking Mark Kelly is a sabotage move. It’s a suggestion meant to benefit pundits, who are desperate for a reason to get that spotlight off Kamala, and would insist on using up valuable media time introducing Kelly to the nation.
Pete wouldn’t have that problem.
And it’s not that Black people wouldn’t vote for Pete, but that Black people knew that WHITE people wouldn’t vote for a gay man in 2020.
So it wouldn’t have made sense to put our support behind the pick, especially with the South Bend incident being the most notable part of his resume at the time.
Now he’s the competent Secretary of Transportation with two impressive projects to his credit that benefited places with large Black populations.
We notice stuff like that.
I see your argument for Buttigieg; there’s also the advantage of him not having to vacate his electoral office, ‘cause it ain’t. I still like Walz, he’d be a good attack dog (the typical role for a VP nominee). He’s the one that came up with “weird”. 🤔😉😊