It’s a combination of two things, neither of which is totally disqualifying.

The first is his previous employment at McKinsey. They’re a consultant firm that frequently gets brought in by companies to basically do bad things like fire a ton of people or manipulate prices. Not kidnapping children, but it’s a weird place to work if you’re driven by higher values.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/why-buttigiegs-shadowy-consultant-past-at-mckinsey-matters/

The second is in the 2020 primary he started out with progressive messaging and then pivoted to the role of moderate because Bernie and Warren sucked all the air out of that lane. So it just kind of paints the story that he doesn’t really believe in anything. And with the moderate switch he courted a lot of money from big money fundraisers and spent a lot of time talking about what we can’t do.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/23/us/politics/buttigieg-campaign-moderate.html

I don’t get the impression he’s deeply committed to any ideology. If he saw progressivism as the best way to advance his political career, he’d be progressive, but with the influence of big money and lobbyists, I doubt it’d work out that way. On the optimistic side he’d be an Obama, that talks hope and change and then continually defaults to “practicality” as lobbyists and establishment politicians tell him not to move too fast. On the pessimistic side he’d be a Sinema, who said progressive things in their younger days but then abandoned it all for ruthless centrism.

I don’t think any of the moderates have the ability to put the threat of fascism behind us, but I think Buttigieg could definitely talk his way through the issue and maybe triangulate a position to say just enough without ruffling donors’ feathers. Or maybe he’ll just be a progressive in the next run. I think he’s a chameleon and went moderate simply because the progressive channel was full up.

Though really, I think Harris probably could have done that too. People really wanted to like her and not have to deal with that “genocide” cognitive dissonance. Her and Biden’s failure on that front really was an extraordinary level of political obstinance.

Again: If they could have done that to win the primary, they would have stuck with Harris and done it. Or if they were secret Biden stans the whole time they would have managed Iowa and New Hampshire to not be such a failure for their chosen one. They’re reacting and tweaking, and they have more effective and more efficient options.

This just shows that money can boost a candidate but not make them happen if they don’t have the ability. Biden was the default, the refuge after all their other candidates weren’t demonstrating an ability to go the distance. If money alone was enough, they would have just stayed with Harris.

Newsom doesn’t have the history to be that default option. Why choose him when Buttigieg is out there, no longer just a mayor, or Beshear is telling his red state success story, or Kelly is out there as a purple state astronaut? Plenty of moderates to choose from with better stories and better personalities.

Yeah, they sure seem like they’re just going to keep doing that though. So all of us sober and sane voters who know how critical this election is going to be should just make sure we don’t let Newsom become the candidate, right?

Harris is a great example because she had a lot of institutional support and big money backing in 2020 and flamed out. With alternatives available, he’s toast.

He just can’t compete on emotional appeal with people like AOC or Buttigieg (I don’t trust him, but he can speak well). And some of the other governors could point to political achievements, but his governing highlights have been stopping Democrats from creating law to help people and thinking his own rules didn’t apply to him during the pandemic.

Harris had a lot of the exact same rich people backing her in 2020. Some politicians just don’t have “it” no matter how much money is behind them.

Watching a few of his answers and the smarmy face he maintains throughout them makes me wonder why anyone in the know thinks this guy has a chance in the primary.

The people targeted by videos of places in the UK most Americans don’t even know exist aren’t Americans. You’re delusional if you think the same sort of reactionary racist Boomers who eat this shit up in the US don’t exist all across Europe.

Most of the changes aren’t law so they don’t need approval from anyone else to be repealed. Whether or not that means they’ll actually do that is the question, but if they don’t the only villain is the president.

I think it should actually be moved to Wednesday if made a holiday. It should be pushed as far as possible from being an opportunity for a long weekend where people choose leisure over civic participation.

He was only firing toward the man who was murdered. Which is also apparently not a crime (if the target is Palestinian). Only murders that are captured from beginning to end on camera can be prosecuted. Maybe. If the Palestinian victim is famous and the story doesn’t go away.

They’ve been systematically deconstructing all the excuses used by corporate Democrats to justify why they need to keep the system moving even though they totally oppose [insert current controversial spending]. All that stuff wasn’t an accident. It was designed that way and the regime just threw it away because they’re too dumb to recognize that it was helping them.

TSA is a worthless self-inflicted wound to the country. If I could fly on “I’ll Take My Chances” Air, I absolutely would just to reclaim my time from the security theater.

Few people here are talking about radical reforms that would change the existing power dynamics and politicians are even less ambitious. Centrists are continually looking for off-ramps so that we don’t “go too far” (e.g., don’t abolish ICE, reform the courts, ban money from politics, reestablish the balance of powers). Even with a blue wave and a reformist president, expect there to be enough of those sorts to bog down any momentum for change and enough voters eager to reconcile and return to business as usual that nothing changes.

Other countries should be planning to insulate themselves from us, because we’re not going to become safe to trust. We may go back to Obama levels of foreign engagement and the slow grind of neoliberal economic policy, but we’re going to be teetering on the edge of another Trump for decades at least. His 40% of supporters are fanatical and have no exposure to outside viewpoints that would deprogram them, and the judges he’s put in place will allow insanity to stay mainstream.

YouTube being broadcast in Israel is not an inherent moral good to be balanced against censorship. And honestly Israel’s threats are almost certainly bullshit. Israel is culturally integrated with the West and YouTube is a vital platform for their businesses and propaganda efforts. They wouldn’t “just block YouTube”.

IIRC, he’s starting negotiations in the middle and is eager to give up even more.

I’m confused by this whole story. How were the Hostage Response Team or even Mexican police involved if he was surrendering himself at the US embassy? I’m also confused by his lawyer’s account about being surprised to be handcuffed. How did he think this was going to work?

It had union buy in to organize the union members. A strong core to let people know it was serious and they wouldn’t be alone. But that didn’t manage the other people who joined.

I do agree that this is less organized and without enough prep time. The same thing needs to happen with national unions providing the core to make it real, then the more exposed workers can get the confidence to act. You don’t need unions from top to bottom though.

A general strike happened in Minneapolis without that level of organization.