Pete Buttigieg Announcement Watch Party and Game of Thrones

[mallorys_camera]

The Buttigieg Announcement Watch party was very interesting.

Of course, everyone there was a Boomer.

Buttigieg gave an excellent speech, touting the fact that mayors must focus on practical solutions to problems. (“A pothole doesn’t ask whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican.”)

I’m here today… to tell a different story than “Make America Great Again.”

Because there is a myth being sold to industrial and rural communities: the myth that we can stop the clock and turn it back.

It comes from people who think the only way to reach communities like ours is through resentment and nostalgia, selling an impossible promise of returning to a bygone era that was never as great as advertised to begin with.

The problem is, they’re telling us to look for greatness in all the wrong places.

Because if there is one thing the city of South Bend has shown, it’s that there is no such thing as an honest politics that revolves around the word “again.”

I think it’s entirely possible that Buttigieg wrote the speech himself.

Thing is, though, most people my age do live in the myths of their past to a large extent. And we are the demographic that votes! So, as insightful as this analysis is, it strikes out as a psychological truism.

More interesting than the speechifying was the strategy leading up to the announcement.

The speeches leading up to Buttigieg’s were from other mayors of small and mid-sized cities. His overarching narrative, then, is change that comes from the bottom up not from the top down. He is a great believer in one of my favorite truisms: All politics is local.

His vulnerability is his sexual orientation.

Vast swaths of American voters won’t vote for him because he’s gay. That’s just a fact. He’ll enrage tRump’s base more than anything that Joe or Bernie or Elizabeth Warren or Kamela Harris could ever do or say because if nothing else, they’re still hetero, they still play for our team! Truth be told, I suspect a lot of Dems aren’t ready for Mayor Pete either.

So, I don’t know.

I went home and sent him more money that I can really afford because I really like him. But I’m trying to keep my options open and remain as uncommitted as possible—because the #1 criterion for any candidate I support has to be that they can defeat tRump.

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I need to do a shout-out, too, to the house in Woodstock where the Announcement Watch party took place, a converted 19th century barn with fabulous beams and interesting spaces. No insulation, though. And lots of windows and skylights. A real bitch to heat in the winter, I imagine. (As tactless and blunt as I famously am, I knew better than to ask, “So! Exactly how high do your utility bills run in January?”)



Came home and played Tropico for four hours. Because who wouldn’t rather be the dictator of a small Caribbean island republic than analyze the Medicare X legislation currently pending before Congress, right?

I also watched Game of Thrones.

Gotta say, I thought GoT was dull, but then I found the whole last season dull.

When showrunners get away from character development and into the realm of Marvel-esque superhero plot wrangling, I completely lose interest.

I’m just weird that way, I guess.

Still, it’s a cultural phenomenon.

So, one must participate.