Mayor Pete Buttigieg Gets Ripped to Shreds for Boasting ‘American Heartland’ Vision: ‘Offensive and Disgraceful’

Tommy ChristopherJan 30th, 2020, 9:13 am
 

Win McNamee/Getty Images

Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg ignited a social media explosion when he tweeted that his roots in the “American Heartland” gave him the “vision” to face the challenges of the presidency.

On Wednesday afternoon, Mayor Pete made a pitch that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, tweeting “In the face of unprecedented challenges, we need a president whose vision was shaped by the American Heartland rather than the ineffective Washington politics we’ve come to know and expect.”

Many prominent Twitter users had questions, like Oscar-nominated filmmaker Ava DuVernay, who wrote “Respectfully, where is the American Heartland located exactly in your mind as you write this tweet? Does it include Compton and other places like it? Because us folks from those places would like a president shaped by our vision too.”

Journalist Soledad O’Brien found the tweet “offensive and disgraceful,” and in a follow-up tweet, called it a “dog whistle” and advised Mayor Pete to “sit with his staffers of color and have them explain this to him.”

Civil rights attorney Sherrilyn Ifill also delivered a critique of the embedded message, writing “Heartland is code. And I’m over it. It erases the legitimacy of the experiences and reality of Black mid-Westerners and cloaks white mid-Western communities in a gauzy innocence and authenticity.”

Comedian Andy Richter — who previously endorsed Senator Kamala Harris, but now supports Senator Elizabeth Warren for president — offered his decoding of the message, writing “I’m from the supposed Heartland, and in a political context ‘the Heartland’ does not mean not-Washington. It means the place where white people run things.”

Richter also had a ready answer for those who would point out that President Barack Obama used the term, writing “And for those who are pointing out that Pres. Obama used the word ‘Heartland’: yes, the genius political communicator first Black president using coded language against itself to assuage the fears of nervous white voters is exactly the same thing as today’s tweet.”

It goes on like that, with others also taking the opportunity to snipe at Buttigieg over his education and early career, for about 10,000 replies, and even more quote-tweets.

In fairness to Buttigieg, many political candidates lean heavily into this sort of messaging, including other Democratic frontrunners. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren stresses her Oklahoma roots in her stump speech, and rolled out an ad just this week contrasting her upbringing with President Donald Trump’s New York roots.

Warren supporter Dante Atkins capitalized on Mayor Pete’s tweet to point this out, writing “This is correct. Elizabeth Warren’s career was shaped by her experience growing up on the ragged edge of the middle class in Oklahoma. I recommend you look into it.”

Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar has been fairly relentless in pitching herself as someone who can win the midwest, including messages very similar to Mayor Pete’s.

Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has been more explicitly racial in his appeal, once saying “I come from the white working class” and claiming to be “deeply humiliated that the Democratic Party cannot talk to the people where I came from.”

After saying this on TV, Sanders tweeted it as well.

Sanders was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York.

Former Vice President Joe Biden often stresses his working-class roots, but also his connection to communities of color, and has repeatedly said “I come from the black community” during the current campaign.

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