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Pete Buttigieg Does What Gavin Newsom Could Only Dream of Doing [1]
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Date: 2025-04-25
As reported by Advocate.com recently, Pete Buttigieg recently went on a manosphere podcast Flagrant, manosphere meaning an ecosystem of influencers that attempt to talk to young men directly. I think he did great and he kind of ate Newsom’s lunch on reaching out to people we lost in the election. At first glance the scenarios seem similar, but Buttigieg’s strategy is far superior for several reasons and the importance of those is the going to be my focus here.
Many people thought Newsom was doing good by reaching out, but many also felt he betrayed his own party by giving right wingers air time and sanewashing their claims the way that mainstream media treats Republicans like rational actors debating in good faith when that is never the case. The way Pete did it is what will resonate with groups we need to inform about politics and thus is deserving of attention.
1. He talked to people that aren’t political operatives.
Talking to political operatives sounds like a good idea. After all, if someone has Republican influence then supposedly that means Republicans listen to them and that means debating them could expose right wing influencers to arguments they haven’t heard. People hearing Democrat arguments for issues is a good thing, right?
Well, it certainly is but context is very important. The ultimate goal of a political operative is to influence someone toward political ends. A Republican political operative isn’t going to go to show up to debate a Democrat because they are looking for an earnest exchange of ideas, they are doing it because they have something to be gained. The people that listen to Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon are not the types of people who are willing to hear out Democrats, but anyone that is a Newsom fan tuned into a show where they got to hear to people with very dangerous ideas sound quite reasonable because Newsom’s goal was a reasonable sounding conversation.
Reasonable sounding does not mean the underlying arguments are reasonable and trying to find common ground with Republican political operatives is almost always going end up making them sound like they are credible which is just more sanewashing like MSM does.
Podcast influencers don’t have that issue. They are certainly trying to get something out of their guests and may even hold right wing beliefs, but they are not outright members of an organization whose goal is to discredit Democrats. Pete had a few questions that were definitely meant to throw him off guard or be outrageous, but none of that is comparable to someone making a concerted effort to spread lies as part of a political organization.
2. He didn’t cede on their points.
One thing Gavin Newsom did that bothered many is the fact that he agreed with Republican operative about some of their talking points. This is always a bad idea, it doesn’t matter if he was right to agree with Charlie about trans people in sports (it absolutely isn’t harming women to let trans women participate in sports according to all available evidence by the way), it would still be wrong to cede the point to Charlie.
Why? Because the issue is a bludgeon they use to discredit Democrats. Republicans have spread the lie that trans people are a threat to women. Even if you did believe trans woman had an advantage, the fact of the matter is that trans people are such a small part of the population and trans athlete are even rarer. Trans athletes make up 0.002% of college athletes (10/500,000) and 0.001% of Olympians identify as trans. Trans people aren’t wiping out women’s records or sweeping scholarship competition neither has trans women participating lead to an increase in injuries. All of the harm claimed by Republicans is focusing on individual sob stories that sound good to the uninformed and discredit Democrats.
I don’t believe people need to tow the party line 100% of the time, but when you add it all up with the context you have a Republican operative leaning into a narrative that galvanizes the Republican base while a Democrat agrees with them and makes the Democratic party look wrong for supporting trans people. Even if trans people in sports were causing harm (I repeat, they really really really aren’t), this handling indirectly makes voters feel justified for derailing an election over trans issues.
Now Republicans can go to their base and say “See, even Newsom admits they shouldn’t be there, now that they lost Democrats are admitting we were right to be scared of trans people.” It validates the lies that helped them win the election and makes Democrats look like idiots to everyone, it also makes him look weak and vulnerable to the other side. Pete did the opposite.
The hosts asked him about “’white boy fun’ (straight men pretending to be gay to troll each other)” and if that happens in the Navy, going so far as to ask if anyone pretended to be gay to him while he was closeted. They were clearly seeing if they could get him up in arms about it, but Pete was unfazed. He mentioned it never happened to him but he understand why it bothers people and because there aren’t always visible signs of gayness most people assume you aren’t gay and it’s okay to joke about that. Pete stayed cool, gave an honest and digestible answer, and moved on.
This isn’t the most fair comparison to be honest, just because Pete wasn’t going into hostile territory, but that is exactly why the first point is so important. It is so hard to get anything useful out of going onto a hostile platform or letting a hostile actor come onto yours. Going to a group that hasn’t necessarily gelled with past messaging and trying a new communication strategy is infinitely more effective than trying to attract new supporters by engaging with someone who is not operating in good faith and explicitly trying to achieve the opposite goal of you. That works when we have democratic debates with fact checking, decorum, and good faith actors.
This isn’t the world we live in anymore. If we ever want to debate with Republicans and come out looking good we have to destroy them rhetorically in a way most people can quickly understand.
3.He spoke plainly.
Quoted from Advocate.com “Most people would agree with the idea that violent criminals shouldn’t be here,” he said. “But then other things are happening. They take some guy and just send him by mistake to a Salvadoran prison, which is obviously... a huge, huge problem morally and policy-wise.” He linked that controversy to a larger trend in media and political attention cycles. “When we did something, when we got a bridge or a road built... it was incredibly hard to get attention,” he said. “The projects that got the most coverage were the ones where we caught a Republican congressman trying to take credit for the project after they voted against it.” He cited Rep. Nancy Mace as an example, referencing her attempt to claim credit for a Charleston transit project she had previously opposed. The takeaway, Buttigieg said, is that Democrats shouldn’t shy away from naming bad actors or engaging in public controversy to tell the full story. “Part of what I think Bernie and AOC are doing quite well is they’re not afraid of some controversy... of naming bad guys.”
It is relatively easy to say something in a long form essay that no one really wants to read. Don’t get me wrong, it definitely takes talent to make an enjoyable long form essay people want to read, but even that will only reach people who read long form content regularly. I think it was part of the issues Democrats had with their message reaching people last election.
Algorithms disadvantage Democrats, period. They are owned by people that are not interested in truth (see major sites not wanting to moderate outright lies because the discussions are of public interest) but rather in pissing you off so you spend as much time as possible arguing with people. The ads earn money based on usage and every second is more dollars in their pocket. They not only don’t care about lies, they know that moderating lies is expensive so they prefer it to be a free for all where only the most heinous behavior is worthy of intervention.
I have heard some say “people need to own their algorithms” implying that if you haven’t seen Democrats on social media due to your algorithm it is your fault for not fixing it. This is wrong for several reasons, the first of which is that the same companies invested in letting people lie do not treat all content equally.
Content that is engaging and addictive to users is prioritized over long form content that takes them off site. You can care a lot about Democrats and the algorithm will just feed you divisive discussions about Democrats rather than Democratic representatives talking about the good they do. That goes double for people that don’t explicitly look for Democrats to begin with. I used to go through social media constantly discussing and sharing content about progressive matters and I never once saw any sponsored or shared content from Democrats.
I would get news articles about them and the actions they were taking or other people talking about Dem strategy as well as deep dives on political topics, but I never once got connected to content by actual Democrat operatives or even talking points. It was all just websites about different progressive topics sharing news about Democrats.
On top of that, what about the large number of Americans who support progressive policies when they aren’t connected with a specific party? If I was an explicitly progressive person participating in discussions about the Democratic party and I never managed to attract their content in the algorithm, what hope is there for someone that mainly comes to social media for entertainment but listens to podcasters about politics? These sort of shows are classified as entertainment that brings up politics and not explicitly political, that is why political content won’t reach these people unless it penetrates their internet bubble the way Pete just did.
That is where the penetrability of our message is failing. People are either deeply aware of the political movements of the party or they are mostly uninformed. Democratic supporters can share Democrat social media, but if the algorithm sees that it isn’t garnering a ton of controversy or time spent then it deprioritizes. You can see why that benefits Republicans, they live on controversy and attracting click and views and especially staying around for angry discussion which is why MSM just cannot seem to stop following Trump’s every move no matter how banal.
To bring all of this back to Buttigieg, this is exactly the type of stuff we need from Democrats to compete in the modern day. Pete covers the ideas that nobody likes violent criminals but due process is important, the fact that modern media prioritizes outrage over stuff that gets done, and tops it off with saying we need to call people out if they are being bad guys and not shy away from truth telling.
Those are three important ideas he covers in less than a paragraph each and he said it in a way where you can understand the message even if you aren’t familiar with exactly what due process means, how algorithmic media drives outrage, or how bad faith Republicans operatives can be. This is pure genius on his part, we know that due process polls well but by putting it in such a simple way (“They just take some guy and send him by mistake to a Salvadoran prison”) we can tell more people how awful Republicans are being in a way that doesn’t require research and link following.
It may be our civic responsibility to be informed but if people are abdicating that and consequentially handing the country to fascists because they are poorly informed, it is our job to figure out how to reach them. We can complain about how irresponsible it is all day long, but if we never get past complaining and discuss how to get through to them we are dooming history to repeat itself.
Conclusion
Pete Buttigieg just gave a master class in meeting people where they’re at and crafting a message for the digital age. The traveling town halls of figures like Bernie and AOC are also meeting the moment in a different way, but in order for knowledge to reach the furthest corners of America we need a ton of people doing what Pete just did so that the message can be sharable and fun to watch. Content that’s fun is what the algorithm elevates so as much as “make politics more fun” sounds puerile it is what we need to do to compete in modern information spaces.
PS: I won’t be discussing trans issues in the comments. I know they are controversial to some, but as mentioned in the diary the point is that conceding issues to Republicans (in this case specifically, Newsom mentioned his doubt without pointing out is statistically never going to affect people’s lives the way Trump’s policies do) is always going to make Democrats look weak and make right wing narratives look more correct to the supporters. That is always bad strategy even if you think we should focus on an issue less. I will discuss why I think such strategy is important if you like but I will not be discussing the substance of trans issues (that their participation is not harmful and that medical care for trans patients is not any different from other covered conditions) or if we should stop pushing for legislative wins for trans people to appease the uninformed.
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