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Pete Buttigieg's Elite-Friendly Politics Won't Help the Marginalized – Jacobin magazine

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5 years ago

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Pete Buttigieg’s Elite-Friendly Politics Won’t Help the Marginalized

By
Paul M. Renfro

Pete Buttigieg is this election’s poster child for “progressive neoliberalism” — offering up platitudes about diversity while leaving untouched the very structures that oppress people. It’s time we left this kind of politics in the past.

Democratic presidential candidate and former South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks during a campaign event on January 31, 2020 in Clinton, Iowa. (Joe Raedle / Getty Images)

The past decade was a momentous one for the LGBT movement in the United States. Among many other milestones, marriage equality became the law of the land in 2015, and trans students received vital protections under Barack Obama’s administration.

Yet the decade also revealed the shortcomings of mainstream LGBT politics. Not only were many Obama-era actions weak and relatively easy to repeal — Trump has already reversed many of these gains — they also tended to focus on well-off segments of the LGBT community. Radical activists calling for a broader, more ambitious queer politics focused on poor and working-class people — including the LGBT youth who disproportionately experience homelessness and incarceration — were rebuffed in favor of a blinkered politics of inclusion, representation, and accommodation.

Former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg’s emergence as a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination serves as a fitting bookend to this decade of elite-centered LGBT politics. By framing himself as a progressive champion while vowing not to alienate voters on either side of the aisle (and hobnobbing with big-money donors), Buttigieg has sought to emulate Barack Obama in both style and substance.

As theorist Nancy Fraser has argued, the Obama/Clinton wing of the Democratic Party has embodied and espoused “progressive neoliberalism” — fusing “mainstream currents of new social movements (feminism, anti-racism, multiculturalism, and LGBTQ rights), on the one side, and high-end ‘symbolic’ and service-based business sectors (Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood), on the other.” Through watchwords like diversity and inclusion, progressive neoliberalism has looked to incorporate historically subjugated groups into the mainstream while retaining the underlying economic and political system, built on exploitation and inequality.

Hillary Clinton’s 2016 defeat seemed to signal the demise of progressive neoliberalism. Yet Buttigieg has breathed new life into it, positioning himself as Obama’s heir. For a time, Buttigieg’s move seemed like a smart bet. Obama and Obamaism remain popular among the Democratic electorate, and Buttigieg — buoyed by high-dollar fundraisers — polled well in Iowa and New Hampshire for many months. But we would do well to recognize the severe limits of progressive neoliberalism, which has harmed the very groups it purports to defend.

Progressive Neoliberalism From Obama to Pete

To many Democratic primary voters (especially those on the older end), Buttigieg comes off as a polished and poised progressive, a fresh face whose youth and sexual identity set him apart from the rest of the primary field.

It’s an image that owes much to Barack Obama and his advisers. “Obama’s unique gift,” Corey Robin writes, “was being able to turn soaring statements of principle into simple truths of politics, marrying a national inheritance of social movements from below to a plainspoken pragmatism from above.” In 2008 especially, Obama’s rhetorical flourishes, racial identity, and youthful visage encouraged voters to project upon him their own political aspirations.

Though Obama’s racial identity, elite academic credentials, and connection to far-flung locales like Indonesia and Kenya alarmed white supremacists, anti-intellectuals, and xenophobes, these characteristics served as a salve to progressives. As Jeremy Scahill observes, “people wanted to place onto him an identity that Obama himself never even claimed. But he did craft his identity . . . in such a way that a lot of things were open to interpretation. . . . Obama would allow people to think he was this thing but in reality, he was a pretty right-wing Democrat.”

Mayor Pete has followed suit, foregrounding his identity and his ostensibly bold policy proposals — which, in his words, “are not as extreme” as those of his competitors, but which “would still make [him] the most progressive president of [his] lifetime.” This kind of argument surely resonates with voters who imagine themselves to be progressive yet sensible, a formulation that boosted Obama to electoral success but ultimately proved insufficient.

In the face of Republican obstructionism, a festering economic crisis, and a series of cataclysmic wars, Obama suffered from a failure of imagination. His market-friendly politics hemmed in health care reform, the stimulus, and, most disastrously, foreclosure relief. (Right-wing detractors called him a socialist, anyway.) His and other Democrats’ deep-seated fear of appearing soft on national security prompted a string of counter-terrorism misadventures — most notably, the intervention in Libya. Obama portrayed himself as a transformative figure, all while fortifying an unconscionable deportation regime, eviscerating black wealth, and bombing the Middle East, South Asia, and Somalia.

Obama’s tepid response to the slayings of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown helped fuel the Black Lives Matter movement and, as Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor has noted, also fostered disappointment and disenchantment among many young African Americans. “When the president your generation selected does not condemn these attacks, you suddenly begin to believe that this system is a fraudulent hoax,” St. Louis hip-hop artist Tef Poe wrote to Obama in a 2014 letter. “Racism is very much alive in America, but as a president with so much melanin in his skin, you seem to address it very bashfully.” Such disillusionment contributed to the Democrats’ shocking defeat in 2016, as many working-class black voters stayed home. (The GOP’s draconian voter suppression laws didn’t help either.) By 2017, some 21 percent of black women indicated “that neither party supports them.”

For critics like Taylor and Tef Poe, Obama seemed only to marshal his racial identity when it was politically expedient. There’s ample evidence that Mayor Pete is operating in a similar vein, on occasion deploying his identity as a gay man in order to sugarcoat policy proposals that would benefit the ruling class.

When asked during November’s Democratic primary debate about his failure to connect with African-American voters, for example, Buttigieg responded with progressive neoliberal pablum, championing the nationwide adoption of same-sex marriage while downplaying the vast power imbalances between an affluent, Ivy League–educated person like himself and the overwhelming majority of people of color:

[W]hile I do not have the experience of ever having been discriminated against because of the color of my skin, I do have the experience of sometimes feeling like a stranger in my own country. Turning on the news and seeing my own rights come up for debate and seeing my rights expanded by a coalition of people like me and people not at all like me working side by side, shoulder to shoulder, making it possible for me to be standing here wearing this wedding ring in a way that couldn’t have happened two elections ago, lets me know just how deep my obligation is to help those whose rights are on the line every day even if they are nothing like me in their experience.

This Pollyannaish, triumphalist spiel also obscured the folly of rights without enforcement or redistribution (as Taylor and Samuel Moyn have pointed out). Over a half-century since the civil rights bills of the 1960s, racial segregation and discrimination remain firmly entrenched. When Buttigieg claimed to have “worked for years” as South Bend mayor “under the illusion that our schools in my city were integrated . . . [b]ecause they had to be, because of a court order” — and then contradicted himself by insisting that the city’s schools were, in fact, meaningfully desegregated — he was, consciously or not, doubling down on the legalistic liberalism that has failed poor and working-class black people in South Bend and beyond for generations.

Pete’s policy platform reflects not only this rights-based liberalism, but also the “woke” market-centric technocracy at the heart of progressive neoliberalism. His policies demonstrate a keen awareness of racial, gender, and sexual inequality but not the ways that capitalism produces and widens those disparities. In fact, Buttigieg locates solutions to these injustices in the very systems that sustain them.

Buttigieg’s “Douglass Plan” (presumptuously named for abolitionist Frederick Douglass) seeks to reverse the damage done by centuries of capitalism and racism through “entrepreneurship and job creation in underserved communities.” “Entrepreneurship is an engine of economic growth and employment,” Buttigieg’s campaign website reads. “However, people of color face unique challenges to starting their own businesses.” This fundamentally misunderstands the dynamics of racial oppression in the United States — prescribing black capitalism when exploitation and corporate power are at the center of the problem.

Buttigieg takes a similar approach to women’s issues. In his insistence that “ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment,” “appointing at least 50 percent women to the Cabinet and judiciary,” and “investing over $50 billion to grow women-owned business” will help improve the lives of US women, Buttigieg simply hopes to diversify, rather than dismantle, oppressive hierarchies.

Given Buttigieg’s dismal record on race as South Bend mayor and as a presidential candidate, his eagerness to project US power around the world, his clear popularity among billionaire donors (forty of whom have contributed to his campaign), his volleys against universal social programs like Medicare for All and tuition-free public college, and his consulting history at McKinsey & Company, there’s plenty of reason to suspect a Buttigieg presidency would be bad for the non-rich and the marginalized. And his sexual identity doesn’t change any of that.

Against Progressive Neoliberalism

Writing in the New York Times last year, Barbara Smith — cofounder of the black feminist Combahee River Collective and an early analyst of “identity politics” — noted that she left the mainstream LGBT movement because it has generally privileged rich, gay white men. “Gaining rights for some while ignoring the violation and suffering of others does not lead to justice,” she cautioned. “Unless we eradicate the systemic oppressions that undermine the lives of the majority of LGBTQ people, we will never achieve queer liberation.”

Smith — who endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2016 and is backing him again — may as well have been declaiming against Buttigieg. As a moderately unconventional meritocrat seeking to diversify “the winner-takes-all corporate hierarchy,” Buttigieg is following the progressive neoliberal playbook refined by the Democratic Leadership Council, the Clintons, and Obama. His predecessors’ failures to envision or fight for antiracist, antipoverty, feminist, pro-LGBT policy measures beyond the boundaries of the corporate plutocracy helped sow the economic misery and anti-elitism from which Trumpism grew. The progressive neoliberalism that Pete hopes to revive ought to be left in 2016.

None of this is to say that representation does not matter. Notions of citizenship, belonging, and “deservingness” — always freighted with racial, gender, sexual, religious, and class meaning — are partially forged through policy and political discourse. But we should pursue a more ambitious policy program that addresses the oppressive structures that have withstood progressive neoliberal reform. Decommodification, universal policies, and redistribution will not only mobilize the Rainbow Coalition disillusioned by the Third Way politics of Obama and Buttigieg — they will go a long way toward improving the lives of poor and working-class people of all stripes.

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‘Disgraceful:’ N.S. Tory leader slams school’s request that military remove uniform

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November 8, 2024

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HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.

Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.

A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”

Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.

“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.

In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”

“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”

Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.

Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.

Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.

“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.

“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.

“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”

Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.

“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”

NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”

“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Saskatchewan NDP’s Beck holds first caucus meeting after election, outlines plans

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November 8, 2024

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REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.

Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.

She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.

Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.

Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.

The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.

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Nova Scotia election: Liberals say province’s immigration levels are too high

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November 7, 2024

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HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.

Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.

“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.

Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.

“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”

The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.

In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.

“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”

In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.

“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”

Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.

Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.

“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”

In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.

In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.

“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”

Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.

“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”

The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.

“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.

Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.

“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.

— With files from Keith Doucette in Halifax

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