"Obama The Appeaser"

So I had planned yesterday to write a post noting how Mike Pompeo went on the Sunday talk show circuit with the dual purpose of defending (obviously) the Administration's assassination of an Iranian official and ridiculing (almost as obviously) former President Obama.

On Meet the Press, the Secretary of State argued

We suffered from eight years of Iranian support from America. We gave them billions of dollars. We gave them resources.We allowed countries to trade with them, to build up their economy.... We've seen Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas, the PIJ in Gaza Strip, all of these terrorist organizations, the Shi'a militias, the Shi'a militias that we are now challenged to push back against today, all underwritten by American policy in the Obama administration. We've flipped the switch. We're draining those resources. We're going to protect America and keep American people safe.

He contended that the families of Americans being held hostage by Iran

are suffering greatly. They're suffering from the very Iranian regime we're seeking to counter. Most of these folks were taken during the previous administration. It was a policy that was designed to guarantee that the Iranian regime would have power, authority, capacity to take Americans, but not only Americans. Other Westerners, too.

(Check out the transcript. He actually did conflate "families" and hostages.)

Pompeo told CNN's Jake Tapper "Team Obama appeased Iran, and it led to Shia militias with money, Hamas, the PIJ, hundreds of thousands of Syrians killed by Soleimani himself" but "America will no longer behave the way that it did during the Obama-Biden administration. We will no longer appease..."

The message should have been loud and clear to one of the newest multi-millionaires on Martha's Vineyard whom, rumor has it, was recently President of the United States of America. However, there is risk in shooting downward, for a former President to lower himself to an argument with a Secretary of State, albeit an influential one in a particularly reckless Administration.

But that's no longer the case because it's now the current President continuing the practice of disparaging his predecessor, now over a live, ongoing foreign policy crisis. Speaking from the Oval Office, Donald Trump on Wednesday stated

Iran’s hostilities substantially increased after the foolish Iran nuclear deal was signed in 2013, and they were given 150 billion dollars, not to mention 1.8 billion in cash. Instead of saying thank you to the United States, they chanted “Death to America.” In fact, they chanted “Death to America” the day the agreement was signed. Then Iran went on a terror spree funded by the money from the deal, and created hell in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq. The missiles fired last night at us and our allies were paid for with the funds made available by the last administration. The regime also greatly tightened the reins on their own country. Even recently, killing 1,500 people at the many protests that are taking place all throughout Iran.

The hostility (no such thing as hostilities) increased after President Trump led the USA out of the nuclear deal the previous Administration had consummated with Iran. He has no idea where Iran got the money to fire its missiles at US air bases. The "Death to America" reference sounds a lot like Trump's debunked claim of November 21, 2015 that "thousands and thousands of ('Arab') people" were "cheering as the World Trade Center came down" on September 11, 2001.

But lying is as important to Donald Trump as the air he breathes, and many people have become desensitized to it. There is still time, though, to rebut vigorously what Trump says about the prior Administration, for the benefit of the individual, his Party, and the nation. In the passage above, he is saying

You, Barack Obama, tried bribing Iran but they double-crossed you and then humiliated America while destroying the Middle East.  They took our money and after murdering thousands of their own, are trying to kill Americans with the money you gave them. You paid them to kill Americans.

Former President Obama posted his summer reading recommendations on Facebook last year.  He took to Instagram in late December to give us his list of favorite books of 2019.   He believes communicating to Americans his literary preferences is important.

When President Trump brings the USA to the brink of war- and more likely helps set off more terrorism and mayhem in the Mideast and beyond- by reckless actions taken in large measure because President Obama haddone the reverse, it should be as important to him.

Perhaps Barack Obama believes that the more dangerous President Trump becomes, and appears to be to the American people, the greater his own legacy. However, there is a point at which experienced and credible American citizens- such as a former President- need to speak up. The navel-gazing he seemingly revels in must give way to a larger concern, one about the maintenance of American democracy and the stability of international relations.

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Collapsing The Moral Space

As seen at twice in the video below  Secretary of Mike Pompeo appeared Sunday on CNN's State of the Union and reiterated one among the floating reasons the Trump Administration has given for the assassination of Iraqi government official/terrorist Soleimani. At 8:08, Jake Tapper asks him "When you say the attacks were imminent, how imminent were they? Are we talking about days; are we talking about weeks?" Pompeo maintans "If you're an American in this region, days and weeks, this is not something that's relevant. We have to prepare, we have to be ready, we took a bad guy off the battlefield."

At 6:30, there had been

Tapper: Do you know for a fact that the mission Soleimani was working on, you say attacks, you say that he was planning, have they been called off, these attacks?

Pompeo: We're prepared for anything the Islamic Republic of Iran may do, Jake. There are clearly actors that go beyond Soleimani.  That's why we're still doing the work we're doing.  That's why we're still preparing....

That will be enough, Mike. The answer, from what we can discern from your answers, is "no." Mike Pompeo is no Donald Trump, not even a poor man's Donald Trump. Unskilled in projecting righteous indignation and proper body image, Pompeo can't even fake lying or answering a question.  Recalling the focus in the media and elsewhere on impeachment of the President, Elizabeth Warren noted "There was a reason that he chose this moment, not a month ago, not a month from now, not a less aggressive, less dangerous response.” Prolific, never-Trump journalist David Frum has the best argument:

If a threat is imminent, killing the guy at the very top of the chain of command won't stop it.

If killing the guy at the top of the chain of command will stop it, the threat is not imminent.

Killing bin Laden on 9/10 would not have prevented 9/11.

— David Frum (@davidfrum) January 7, 2020

So the strike ordered in Iraq against Iran by commander-in-chief Trump probably was timed to divert attention from the impeachment battle in Washington. However, the President's goal- in this provocative act, in the Middle East more generally, and in international affairs even more broadly- goes beyond mere distraction. It's probably more sophisticated and Jonathan Chait recognizes

His real North Star is in fact an idea he has explicated many times, but — perhaps because it is so horrifying — even his critics seem hesitant to accept as a true motivation. Trump’s plan is to collapse the moral space between America and its enemies.

The president laid out his logic most recently on Sunday night, when he reiterated his threat to destroy Iranian cultural sites if that country retaliates in the wake of the targeted killing of Qasem Soleimani. “They’re allowed to kill our people,” Trump told the press pool. “They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site? It doesn’t work that way.”

This is Trump’s deepest belief about foreign policy: The things that separate the United States from terrorists and dictatorships are not a source of strength, but of weakness. Our enemies are stronger and tougher, willing to do the hard things that must be done in order to win. To defeat them, we must become like them.

Trump has long dismissed respect for human rights, international law, and innocent life as a form of political correctness. During the campaign, he promised to kill the families of terrorists, steal oil from countries the U.S. invades, and restore torture. “Don’t tell me it doesn’t work — torture works,” Trump said in 2016. “Okay, folks? Torture — you know, half these guys [say]: ‘Torture doesn’t work.’ Believe me, it works. Okay?”

In February, 2017 then-Fox News host Bill O'Reilly told President Trump "He's a killer, though. Putin's a killer." Trump responded "There are a lot of killers. We've got a lot of killers. What, you think our country's so innocent?"

Beside the obvious fallacy of moral equivalence, Trump's reply was disturbing on a level we didn't fully understand then.  For most people, charging that a person- or a nation- is not innocent is not a compliment.

But for Donald J. Trump, it may in fact be a positive.  Chait realizes that the President values strength and toughness (as he defines them) above all else and that he wants to make the USA more like its enemies.

That helps explain why Trump does not believe in "win-win" scenarios and is fiercely determined that his enemies- in foreign affairs, domestic politics, and elsewhere- lose.  It helps explain also why Donald Trump does not lack a moral compass. He most assuredly has one- but one valuing nefariousness and depravity.

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Passing On An Opportunity

Invaluable CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale explains

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden dishonestly suggested on Saturday that he had opposed the war in Iraq "from the very moment" it began in 2003 -- even though Biden's campaign said in September that he "misspoke" when he made a similar claim.

Biden was responding Saturday to a voter in Des Moines, Iowa, who told him, "I'm with you 90% of the way" but questioned his judgment in part because "you were for the second Gulf War, which was a mess."

Biden said that "from the very moment" President George W. Bush launched his "shock and awe" military campaign, and "right after" that occurred, "I opposed what he was doing, and spoke to him."

It's false that Biden opposed the war from the moment Bush started it in March 2003. Biden repeatedly spoke in favor of the war both before and after it began.

Biden's language on Saturday -- saying he opposed "what he was doing" at the moment the war commenced -- was more vague than his language in September, when he flatly said he had opposed "the war" at that moment. But the new version was highly misleading even under the most generous interpretation.

On both occasions -- and on another occasion earlier this week -- Biden created the impression that he had been against the war at a key moment when he was actually a vocal supporter.

Anyone can lie and in the case of our President, continually and extravagantly.  It's less of a hindrance politically than in years or decades past. So a lie about support for a war conducted 17 years ago will not be a major hurdle to nomination, nor election, of Joseph R. Biden.

However, his campaign needs to be able to think on its feet and this isn't it:

Asked for a profile by New York Magazine about what role she might play as a member of Congress should Biden capture the White House, the freshman House Democrat from New York responded with a groan.

“Oh God,” she said. “In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party, but in America, we are.”

A spokesperson for Biden’s campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.

The obvious- and magnanimous- response would be something akin to

We're a big tent and there is room for supporters of Obamacare such as myself and also for Democrats on the far-left such as Alexandria or Bernie. This is not the GOP, where Donald Trump says "sit down" and Republican politicians don't look for a chair. And it's not a party whose leader. praises Russia and its murderous dictator and accuses FBI agents of treason.

Ocasio added that the Democratic Party as currently constituted "can be too big of a tent." Biden might have added that his is a Party which welcomes not only diversity of race, religion, national origin, and gender, but also of viewpoint. He might then have challenged Senator Sanders, whom the Queens congresswoman has endorsed, to disagree with him.

Or he could have tried a pithier remark with more of an edge and asserted

I appreciate Alexandria and her devotion to the Democratic Party since she started working for Bernie Sanders five years ago, just as I wish she appreciated my efforts on behalf of the Democratic Party for the past half century.

Biden's policies, including unflinching support for the Affordable Care Act, may not be better than those of Cortez or even more popular. But voters in November (and probably primary voters) are not likely to reward a candidate who is appears so weak that he answers an attack with silence.

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Mission Being Accomplished

Following the continued support of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump in the wake of release of the Access Hollywood sex tape, Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, told CNN's Jake Tapper

I think what we're seeing now is a divide in evangelical Christianity. It wasn't created in 2016 but it's highlighted and shown in 2016. A lot of the old guard went back to the tactics of the 1990s. I think it's just leaving a wreckage of cynicism in its wake and it's going to take us longer to recover from this year than it took us to recover from the scandals of the TV evangelists in the 1980s, I'm afraid, because the very credibility of what it takes to stand up and say "we believe in objective truth, for instance, many of the people who have warned us for years about situational ethics and moral relativism are now asking us to practice it and it's pretty heartbreaking.

That divide is getting worse, and situational ethics remains on the upswing in Donald Trump's America, as revealed at a rally held by the President at a church attended by many illegal immigrants, whose pastor is a strong supporter of the incumbent.  

.If you thought the mission of a Christian church is primarily spiritual or religious and that Jesus Christ really warned "whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment," President Trump- and his supporters- would like you to know that you are misguided.  Medina and Haberman of The New York Times report that on Friday, Trump

spent his hourlong speech at Ministerio Internacional El Rey Jesús, a church with a predominantly Hispanic congregation, alternating between his familiar mocking jabs at Democrats, who he repeatedly called anti-religious, and boasting about his own faith-based policies....

He again taunted Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts by referring to her as “Pocahontas” and mocked Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., who has spoken frequently about his faith, by claiming he had become religious just “two weeks ago.”

If you thought that Jesus said "whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven," President Trump would have you believe you're misguided because

“Evangelical Christians of every denomination and believers of every faith have never had a greater champion, not even close, in the White House, than you have right now,” Mr. Trump said. “We’ve done things that nobody thought was possible....

If you believed Jesus warned "but many who are first will be last, and the last will be first," Donald Trump begs to differ as he "excited the crowd by repeatedly thanking them for their crucial support in 2016 and promising that “we’re going to blow those numbers away in 2020.”

If you nodded approvingly when Abraham Lincoln asserted "my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side," Donald Trump disagrees, maintaining ."I really believe God is on our side

However, if you believe the situational ethics and moral relativism cited in October 2016 by Dr. Moore still prevails among Trump supporters, you'll recognize a regular attendee of the church, whom The Guardian found

acknowledges that Trump’s life – which includes three marriages, adultery and alleged affairs with porn stars – might appear less than pious, but is able to overlook it. “He might be a little rough around the edges for some people, but he says it like it is, and if some of the things he says or the actions he takes upset some people it doesn’t make him less of a man of God.”

Others who came to hear Trump preach were similarly unfazed by the president’s questionable religious credentials.

Trump no longer directly insults Christians, as with "my little wine and my little cracker" or stating that he never asks God for forgiveness because he has no reason to. 

Yet, the playbook is similar.  Dr. Moore cited the "divide in evangelical Christianity" which is "just leaving a wreckage of cynicism in its wake" which will "take us longer to recover from" than in decade(s) past.

President Trump is smart enough to know that his rhetoric is dividing believing Christians one from another and that it is accelerating the movement of young people away from Christianity. But to him, that's no bug. That's a bonus.  It will take Christianity a long time to recover from the wreckage Donald Trump has wrought, and he likes that just fine.

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"Official Washington" Is Donald J. Trump

He may be a President (and unless this is merely a horrid nightmare, he is) but he's no Commander-in-Chief.

That is the case, if one is to believe Trump TV's Tucker Carlson, though he'd hardly admit it.  Upon confirmation Thursday night by Baghdad that U.S. forces had assassinated in an airstrike Qasem Soleimani, who had led Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary General Corps, Carlson maintained (at 4:47 of the segment)

So my sense of it is the President does not seek war and he's wary of it, particularly in an election year. But I think he was elected on the promise that he would avoid wars except when absolutely necessary. But there are a lot of people around him, certainly in the city of Washington, who have been preparing for this, agitating for this.

(Former National Security Advisor John) Bolton is one of many for an awfully long time and you wonder if it's possible that he might be out-maneuvered by them. We might find ourselves moving toward war despite what the President wants.

So when Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution reads "[t]he President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States," the framers did not mean even serving officials, currently the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, or National Security Adviser. They were referring to a private citizen, one forced out of government by the President.

Steve M. argues "Carlson won't get away with being a war skeptic for much longer" because the latter's lucrative gig at Fox News requires him to be a supporter of Trump. Additionally, however, Carlson has laid the groundwork for a pivot toward supporting the war. He has blamed the Iran/USA hostilities not on the Commander-in-Chief or even his advisers. He assigns responsibility to an individual no longer directly associated with the President- but also to the longtime conservative bugaboo, "Washington." Earlier in the segment (beginning at 1:13 of the video), Carlson had claimed

And we have to say it's one official Washington has wanted for decades.   For example, disgraced National Security Adviser John Bolton has made it his life's mission to start a war with Iran. This night, Bolton may be finally getting his wish.

Bolton did work for many years in the federal government, serving Presidents Reagan and HW Bush before Trump. However, those are all Republican Presidents. Miraculously, "Washington" made it through 16 years of Democratic administrations, eight of Bill Clinton and eight of Barack Obama, without war with Iran.

President Trump has shown weakness in numerous areas. But this attack, with colorful, dramatic optics, big things exploding, and no American casualties thus far, has his fingerprints all over it. That John Bolton, potentially a very damaging impeachment witness against Trump, is undoubtedly pleased is a bonus for the President. It will end badly for the USA, the Mideast, and the world, which for Donald Trump is a fringe benefit.

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On Second Thought....

I was going to post the following interpretation of a portion of a video from a campaign appearance made by Joe Biden last March or April until I realized I discovered that I was missing the point. My argument is still valid- but fairly insignificant given the larger context. To wit:

Former Vice-President Joe Biden was talking extensively about sexual harassment of women, then pivoted slightly to the particular problem encountered by women on college campuses, stating (beginning at 11:15 of the video below)

But we eventually got a lot passed through with the Secretary of Education, a great guy I worked with, and others, under Title IX. Then along came Betsy DeVos.

No, I'm serious- and ended it; ended it. Folks,this is about changing the culture; our culture; our culture.  It's not imported from some African nation or some Asian nation. It's our English jurisprudential culture; our European culture that says it's alright. I'll end with this....

It would be simpler if Joe Biden merely stated "I was wrong about  Anita Hill and the manner in which I conducted hearings into her charges of the sexual harassment directed against her by Clarence Thomas. But that was 30 years ago and as my record makes clear, I've changed and grown a lot since then."

He won't, of course, because no one is pressing the issue against Biden, which is odd considering the right-wing record amassed since that time by Justice Thomas. Also, he won't because compensating for his ghastly behavior as chairperson of the Senate Judiciary Committee by portraying European culture as horrid  is intrinsic to what Joe Biden has become. If he can't be progressive on critical economic issues, he can, at least, pander to primary voters on "culture; culture."

The video has become very controversial because of an edited- nineteen seconds!- version of it showed up on Twitter.  Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent has a different take on this, and one I didn't notice until he wrote

It’s beyond the scope of this blog post to check Biden’s depiction of English common law in the Middle Ages. But what’s clear beyond any doubt from the full remarks is that in this particular reference to English or European culture, Biden — whether right or wrong — was talking primarily about our legal inheritance from English common law and its lingering impact on efforts to legally combat violence against women.

Biden did not recommend any specific changes to law and his emphasis on "culture" partially relieves responsibility for illegal or obviously immoral behavior and/or speech from the individual committing it. His derogatory reference to English common law and reminder that neither Africa nor Asia is responsible are reminders that no one, least of all in a Democratic primary, ever lost a vote by contrasting the wickedness of Europe to that of Asia or Africa. (No doubt rape and sexual harassment are unknown outside of Europe or the USA.)

However, Sargent accurately notes that the video (to which he understandably refuses to link) is dangerously misleading. It is posted by a self-described "exclusive 'weird twitter' posting collective operated by an anonymous rotating cast of your favorite online personalities & podcast hosts." I don't know who is behind the item, nor does Sargent claim to know. Nonetheless, he understands the larger narrative and significance (which I initially did not) and explains

Let’s review. Since 2016, the special counsel’s investigation and two Senate Intelligence Committee reports have spelled out in great detail that Russian disinformation warfare against the 2016 election was extraordinarily concerted, insidious, broad in scope and deliberately crafted to divide the country along racial and social lines. Numerous top intelligence officials have warned that Russia and other outside actors will strike again.

The entire Ukraine scandal, for which Trump has been impeached, is largely about disinformation. Trump extorted Ukraine to get it to announce public statements that would smear Biden with disinformation and help validate conspiracy theories that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in 2016.

In effect, Trump was trying to pressure a foreign power to help manufacture more disinformation to help mislead U.S. voters about a domestic political opponent and absolve Russia of its original disinformation warfare campaign against this country.

Trump has retweeted accounts from the far-right conspiracy theorist QAnon. What’s more, Trump and his prominent supporters have played an active role in spreading disinformation against Democrats. After a conspiracy theory falsely connected former presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke to the recent Texas mass murderer, shadowy but prominent Trump allies amplified the claim.

Trump himself recently retweeted a tweet from one of his favorite conspiracy theorists — whose work he has promoted in the past — that falsely created the impression that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) partied on the anniversary of 9/11. And remember that distorted video of Nancy Pelosi slowed down to make her look drunk?

All this is a sign of what the Democratic nominee could face. It’s no wonder that some Democrats are worried we might even see “deepfake” media manipulations. Imagine such ultra-sophisticated video distortions of Biden’s rambles, retweeted by Trump, and perhaps even by reporters.

Trump views disinformation not as a scourge to be combated in the name of protecting our democracy, but as an ally. In this particular case, Trump has not retweeted the video of Biden — yet. But let’s try to learn from this.

One of the things we can learn from this is that Republicans did it previously and they're doing it again. The GOP can play by the rules of the game or they can make up their own rules, inviting misinformation and disinformation from home and abroad. It's already clear which they're choosing.

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Won't Get Fooled Again?

Derek Robertson in Politico Magazine asks

Why is the enmity from young, left-wing activists toward Buttigieg so visceral? It’s true that they favor Bernie Sanders, but Buttigieg comes in for a type of loathing that surpasses even that they hold for Sanders’ older rivals, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren.

He observes

it’s especially galling that the first millennial to take a serious run at the presidency is nothing like the left’s imagined savior. Buttigieg is a veteran, an outspoken Christian, a former McKinsey consultant, and, frankly, closer to Mitt Romney than Sanders or generational peer AOC in his aw shucks personal affect. In the eyes of radicalized young leftists, Buttigieg isn’t just an ideological foe, he’s worse than that: He’s a square.

Being a veteran probably is not much of a net negative or plus for Buttigieg nor, for that matter, for Tulsi Gabbard. Nonetheless, he is "closer to Mitt Romney than Sanders or generational peer AOC in his aw shucks personal affect" is even more insightful than it appears, given the temperament of the leading candidate.  When Joe Biden noted the misogyny Donald Trump demonstrated in the Access Hollywood tape, in March 2018 in Florida the former vice-president boasted "They asked me would I like to debate this gentleman, and I said no. I said, 'If we were in high school, I'd take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.'"  (On the campaign trail, he has challenged one man to a test of IQ or pushups, and his lead in polls has only grown.)

CNN noted at the time that Biden received "laughter and applause from the crowd at the University of Miami." And Sanders, currently second in polling only to Biden, always looks like he's ready to haul off and punch someone, or at least tell them to get off his lawn.

Being an "outspoken Christian" probably would be a negative, were the South Bend mayor actually outspoken.  He has spoken of his religious beliefs (or "faith" as current lexicon requires) but mostly to contrast it with Trump Administration policies which contrast sharply with Jesus' compassion toward the refugee, the poor, and the outcast generally.

Pete Buttigieg is not an evangelical.  He has not specifically declared a faith in Jesus Christ as his lord and savior; or that everyone sins and therefore is not worthy of heaven; nor that his salvation comes through grace alone without regard to works.

Buttigieg was raised as a Roman Catholic and is now an Episcopalian. This being 2020, the primary distinction between Roman Catholicism and Episcopalianism (or perhaps in identifying as one rather than the other) is arguably the stark difference between the two on the matter of homosexuality.  The Human Rights Campaign explains that in addition to permitting the ordination of gay and transgender candidates for priest

The Episcopal Church supports non-discrimination and has canon laws specifying that everyone has access to the governance of the church and lists “sexual orientation, gender identity and expression” as specifically protected from discrimination. In 2018, the church committed to oppose all legislation that restricts public restroom, locker room and shower access for transgender and gender non-conforming people.

The new year should bring with it a determination to speak more honestly, notwithstanding the exquisite sensitivities of many people. Ignoring the strong probability, as Robertson does, that a gay male candidate married to a man probably has something to do with his theological affiliation and even beliefs is dishonest or strikingly naive.

Nevertheless, Robertson does understand that Buttigieg is viewed as a "square" He is "the "type that gets elected mayor of a small Midwestern city" (blogger's note: South Bend is not small, but whatever) "is inherently far more likely to be an institutionalist, more a do-gooding Leslie Knope than a radicalized version of Bart Simpson" (or Bernie Sanders, but that's repetitive).

However, he's not only a "square" or an "institutionalist." He's also a traitor to his sexual orientation, or at least appears to be, by being moderate and institutionalist.  He ought to know better, the unspoken theme is, because he himself is an outsider to American tradition and polite society. He is by nature a noncomformist- yet by nurture seemingly unwilling to challenge the conventional centrist beliefs underwriting government and corporate policy.

As (bad) luck would have it, we have recent experience with a minority- in this case of sexual preference- aspiring to the highest office of the land.  There were high hopes of "change we can believe in" followed by support for the rogues on Wall Street, record numbers of immigrants being deported, increased income disparity and growing chasm between rich and poor, and a general unwillingness to tackle racial inequality.

He was both a community organizer and black. Yet- or maybe "because"_ liberals and leftists have avoided acknowledging that we were fooled into believing the vacuity of "we are the ones we've been waiting for." Nonetheless, they realize, whether on a conscious or sub-conscious level, that we were let down and the left-wing critics of Buttigieg are determined that it will not happen again.

It may be unfair to Pete Buttigieg that he is paying for the sins of President Barack Obama, though he may be able to overcome it.  If not, he will have met a similar fate as the candidate who thought she could avoid paying for those failures in a general election until Donald Trump proved she could not.

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