Mayor Pete in Manchester: "the boomer candidate."

Pete Buttigieg

     "We don't like him even a little bit. . . . Neoliberal lapdog to the establishment elite. A joke of a candidate. I am a HARD pass on Pandering Pete."

         Comment on my Buttigieg blog post

Progressive Millennials say NO to Pete Buttigieg.

He represents the status quo and the meritocracy.

The voiced Buttigieg message has evolved. Early in his campaign.he talked about generational change. No longer. In New Hampshire he talked about national unity and keeping your health plan if you were happy with it.

Those are fighting words to some. National unity is boomer talk, and that is where Mayor Pete is finding his fans. Young progressives want a politician to fight for change, and that's not Mayor Pete.

Buttigieg is at the fracture point within the Democratic Party. There are two constituencies, two messages, two policy prescriptions, and two fundamental ways of thinking about the state of the American economy and its politics

One vein within the Democratic Party is built around successful urban, cosmopolitan knowledge workers, especially people with college or post college training. These are people who are succeeding in the modern global economy, the meritocratic Democratic Party. They want improvement. They are OK with reform. They want people to get along. 

This includes the traditional Democratic donors, older prosperous liberals, i.e. boomers. Hillary Clinton represented this vein. So does Pete Buttigieg.

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The alternative vein is the progressive/socialist version voiced by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. It calls the unity vein elitist and out of touch with working people. It says that Democrats are appealing to managers and professional people, not hourly employees, and that explains why the supposed "blue wall" collapsed. 

It condemns meritocracy as a trap laid by the comfortable older generation, the people who played by the rules of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and found success, and who assume the old rules still apply. But they don't, say the progressives.  Young people have college debt not experienced by the boomer generation, because boomers defunded higher ed. There are fewer unions and lower incomes, but higher national debt, the debt handed down from the boomer generation to the millennial generation. There is plastic in the ocean, coal plants on the ground, and carbon in the air, all problems boomers have bequeathed to the young.

Click: Kristal Ball

Understood from the point of view of frustrated young voters who feel burdened by an economy stacked against them, the comfortable boomer generation is not an ally; they are the impediments. And Pete Buttigieg has thrown in his lot with boomers. He is their good boy, their good example to show anyone can succeed, their excuse for their failure, according to his progressive critics.

Click on the video for exposure to the anti-Buttigieg Millennial viewpoint. It may shock some of my older readers.

Buttigieg represents two very different things to the two sides of the divide. To the longstanding older base of the Democratic Party, especially educated liberal donors, Buttigieg is an attractive candidate. Bring America together. Keep the Medicare privilege. Don't rock the boat. 

To the struggling millennial left, Buttigieg is a neoliberal lapdog traitor.