Lately I've been really into this guy called Pete Buttigieg.
Who goes by "Mayor Pete" most of the time because 1. before announcing that he was going to run for President he served as the Mayor of South Bend, Indiana and 2. because "Buttigieg" is one of the most unfortunate last names you could have in contemporary North American politics, I think.
I first heard about Mayor Pete on the Pod Save America podcast (which is one of the best no-bullshit political podcasts out there)
where I believe they were commenting on his last name
and how a religious, gay Millennial who was previously the mayor of a small town in a conservative midwestern state was running for President
which got me all fired up, let me tell you.
Then I listened to his interview and was really impressed by his direct approach, thoughtful comments, and his policies. Dude reminds me of Obama a bit.
Oh, and did I mention that he went to Harvard and Oxford and fought in the War in Afghanistan?
Then we watched the CNN town hall where he blew everyone away and was happy to see that not only can he string a nice couple of words together, but he can also do it in a way that makes you go
oh
that's just plain common sense
like, there's a climate crisis and we need to stop pretending there isn't
automation is coming for millions of jobs that will never come back
we need to re-think the definition of "work" to include things like caring for family
nobody should worry about having to go bankrupt if they get sick
and as he's explaining his views he keeps repeating "I'm part of the generation that has to deal with these issues," and it's SO REFRESHING to hear a Millennial stating facts and being listened to at a federal level, holy shit.
He's still a long shot candidate at the moment, but he's been getting tons of press and was in Esquire, and apparently his campaign raised over $600 K in the 24 hours since the CNN interview.
It's so refreshing to see young political leaders with a strong message
working hard to craft forward-thinking policies that connect with younger voters
and pushing the needle on issues like automation and environmentalism as key policies
if only we had a party who could do something like that here in Canada