MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell tore into Pete Buttigieg this week after the rising Presidential candidate inaccurately and recklessly spread misinformation about his own party while making rounds on the campaign trail.
One of the main dividing factors between the Democrats and Republicans has always been fiscal issues. Democrats have an established history of being the deficit “police” and challenging the GOP’s tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and increased taxes for the little guy. That said, the GOP has made it part of their gaslighting attacks on the Dems, to muddy the waters and paint them as the ones who are irresponsible when it comes to the deficit. That’s simply is not true though.
In what the Daily Kos refers to as flat out “lying,” and O’Donnell calls blatant GOP talking points, Buttigieg recently delivered a false statement to potential voters regarding Democrats and deficits.
Ok, so here’s the thing … personally I have really been trying to give Buttigieg the benefit of the doubt, but his perpetually fumbled ball in the game of ‘Black folks’ is becoming comical. Add to that, last week even his key demographic – gay white men were left clutching their pearls after photos surfaced of the Mayor hanging out in front of the openly homophobic Salvation Army, ringing their big, red bell while wearing a smile like a 5-year-old at Disney World.
To be fair, the images were from 2017, but that’s recent enough for Buttigieg to know the Salvation Army notoriously takes an antigay position in society. A dear colleague of mine offered that he was not so concerned about Buttigieg doing bell-ringing events with the Salvation Army because as a Mayor, it might have been one of those unavoidable duties, as part of a Christmas press event.
I know the photos are two years old, but still, I can't help but wonder if Mayor Pete just looks at what LGBTQ activists have been working on for years and then chooses to spite it (e.g. Salvation Army, Chick-fil-A, queer media in general, etc.). https://t.co/zSYzlRLrOX
— Zack Ford (@ZackFord) December 4, 2019
But that made me think though, what if the Grand Wizard of the KKK wanted to do a Toy Drive in the center of South Bend and asked the Mayor to attend for a photo op? It’s safe to assume Buttigieg would reserve the right to say “Yes” or “No,” in such instances, right?
Getting back though, to what really p*ssed off Lawrence O’Donnell about Buttigieg’s words; first, you should read what Buttigieg said,
“My party’s not known for worrying about deficits and the debt too much,” Pete Buttigieg said. “But it’s time for us to start getting into that business because what we’ve seen in Washington is that the party that talked a lot about the deficit when they were trying to kill off programs when it came time for the corporate tax cuts, it turns out, they don’t care. There is a trillion-dollar deficit now and created under a Republican administration, which means if my party doesn’t start getting interested in deficits, then nobody will.”
This did not sit well with Democrats and O’Donnell, who seemed to be particularly annoyed because as he calls out Buttigieg was just 11 years old when O’Donnell personally covered decades of senate sessions and witnessed the battle over the deficit first hand. The GOP’s history shows the exact opposite of Buttigieg’s declaration.
O’Donnell took to the airwaves on his show, “The Last Word” and pronounced Buttigieg’s statement as being derived from false GOP talking points used to attack Democrats. He further assessed Buttigieg is either completely oblivious and speaking irresponsibly, or he’s boldly lying on the campaign trail. Either way, it is damaging to the party overall, and Buttigieg needs to stop it.
Here’s how I see it. If you’re a Democratic candidate who manages to p*ss off the blacks, the gays, AND MSNBC … you might be better off as a small-town Mayor – even if the black people there aren’t really feeling you either.
I really don’t know what’s next from Mayor Pete but at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a photo of him eating Chick-fil-A sandwich.
This piece is an opinion piece by one Contributing Writer for Instinct Magazine and may not reflect the opinion of the magazine or other Contributing Writers.
Check out the full story at Daily Kos
Seriously? Did you even read the statement? Everything he said is true. The Dems talk a big game on deficit, but right now they are not doing ANYTHING to make it better. All the tax increases are used to cover new programs and don’t bring the deficit down. All of the other candidates are talking about these huge programs that will only increase spending most likely more than the tax increases they want, but will never get. Pete’s plans are reasonable, doable and affordable. Do some research. Also, your “problem with the blacks” things is just another false narrative. He has tons of black support and it continues to grow. And the gays don’t like him because they are starting to believe the BS that a gay man is not electable.
I don’t know what gays you’re referring to, ” buying into a gay man not being electable”, but this gay man believes he could be elected.
As for the deficit, that MSNBC host may have covered such things before, but I’m fairly well versed in who makes it worse and who tries to make it better.
I don’t know what the point of this article was, but if it was to dissuade people away from Mayor Pete, you missed the mark completely.
“I have really been trying to give Buttigieg the benefit of the doubt” — that statement made me LOL for real. Really? Seriously?
This article is complete bullshit. Sounds like something Milo Yianopoulos would write.