Why Pete Buttigieg became the Democrat Republicans love to hate

On Mayor Pete.

In the wake of the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio earlier this month, Republicans zeroed in on one man as the scapegoat of the chemical spill: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

“For two years, Secretary Buttigieg downplayed and ignored crisis after crisis, while prioritizing topics of little relevance to our nation’s transportation system,” said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who called on Buttigieg to resign.

“Yesterday, Pete Buttigieg had the opportunity to address this problem. He instead talked about the excessive amount of – this is not a joke – too many white men in the construction industry,” Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance said. “That is not a serious concern for this country right now. What is going on in East Palestine is. The Secretary of Transportation needs to focus on real problems, not fake problems.”

Donald Trump Jr. was even more blunt, which is kind of his thing, in an Instagram post.

donaldjtrumpjr

A post shared by Donald Trump Jr. (@donaldjtrumpjr)

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed the attacks on Buttigieg as in “bad faith” and reminded reporters that “Elaine Chao … she was the head of the Department of Transportation, and when there was these types of chemical spills, nobody was calling for her to be fired.”

(Buttigieg traveled to East Palestine earlier this week.)

This isn’t the first time Republicans have singled out Buttigieg for scorn.

Amid a Southwest Airlines booking debacle and a FAA system outage over Christmas and into the New Year, Republicans slammed Buttigieg as ineffective and in over his head.

Rep Andy Biggs @RepAndyBiggsAZ

Instead of focusing on real transportation issues, @SecretaryPete and his minions have focused on woke garbage like below. A regulation like this does not advance the FAA's mission 'to provide the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world.'

American Accountability Foundation @ExposingBiden

With the FAA groundstop this morning, another reminder that Biden Admin wokeness knows no bounds. Dec. 2021 @FAANews put out a 176 page regulation changing "Notice to Airmen" to "Notice to Air Missions." https://t.co/YYNHctE4Rm https://t.co/jfVoT5byqH

Republicans were critical of Buttigieg for the supply-chain issues hitting the economy in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

And, they even took issue with his decision to take parental leave after the birth of two newborns last summer.

Tom Cotton @SenTomCotton

Pete Buttigieg's performance as Secretary of Transportation has been so bad that Americans didn't even realize he spent the last two months absent on paternity leave.

And then there was this from Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

“Pete Buttigieg has been on leave from his job since August after adopting a child. Paternity leave, they call it, trying to figure out how to breastfeed. No word on how that went.”

(Buttigieg is gay and married to Chasten Buttigieg. More on that in a sec.)

What explains all of the vitriol directed at Buttigieg? After all, as Jean-Pierre pointed out, Elaine Chao spent four years as Donald Trump’s Transportation Secretary and got nowhere near this amount of attention. And I bet you can’t name another person who has served as Transportation Secretary in the last two decades.

It’s impossible to have that conversation without noting that Buttigieg is the highest profile gay politician in the country. He is married to a man. They have adopted children.

All of which makes it very easy for Republicans to characterize Buttigieg as the face of the “woke” revolution in America — someone who wants to upend all the traditional ways of doing things to accommodate his lifestyle.

Senator Ted Cruz @SenTedCruz

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is playing woke politics instead of doing his job. Our country is seeing crisis after crisis unfold under his watch.

(That sentiment is often tinged with more than a little homophobia. Republican politicians playing on the fears among some within their party of the secret implementation of some sort of radicalized gay agenda is part and parcel of what is happening here.)

There’s also the fact that Buttigieg is, without question, a rising star within the Democratic party. His surprisingly strong showing in the 2020 presidential primary race — coupled with his extreme youth (he’s still only 41) — made clear that Buttigieg will be around in national politics for the foreseeable future.

Which gives Republicans some incentive to slow his roll, to knock back some of that momentum.

And then there’s the fact that Buttigieg has been one of the leading faces of the Biden administration. He’s on TV constantly. He has been traveling around the country touting victories as the administration’s infrastructure bill is put into action. Aside from Biden himself, no one in the administration — up to and including Vice President Kamala Harris — has been as high profile as Buttigieg.

Add it all up and you see why Buttigieg has rapidly become the Democrat that Republicans love to hate.

Which, honestly, isn’t all (or even mostly) bad for him. Buttigieg clearly has his eye on another presidential run down the line and being the Democrat that Republicans obsess over is a good thing when it comes to raising money and wooing the party’s base.