Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told a gathering of young Democrats on Thursday not to be “mesmerized” by what takes place during Republican Donald Trump’s upcoming presidential term.
“We cannot be mesmerized by the worst things that we see happening,” he told the group of elected officials at a conference in Washington, as The New York Times reported. “We will be inclined to react with shock by some things which are done precisely with the intent of shocking us. We need to move very quickly through the shock.”
Buttigieg, a 2020 presidential candidate and former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, also called on his party to “figure out how to take online conversations offline at scale.”
“While it is not obvious how to do that, that is something that through human history until about 15 years ago, we all did,” he said. “So we’re going to have ways to do that that might on some level be a return to form, but on other levels entail information environment work that is unfamiliar to people who have taken a free press in a democratic society for granted.”
His suggestions are akin to those of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who said after the 2024 elections that it will be important for Democrats to build community and engage in more direct, offline communication in the years ahead.
At another point during Thursday’s event, Buttigieg discussed how Democrats might deal with performative Republican antics.
As an example, he cited incoming Rep. Sarah McBride’s (D-Del.) handling of a transgender bathroom ban in the Capitol that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced this week. Earlier this month, McBride became the first out transgender person elected to Congress.
McBride responded to the ban by saying: “I’m not here to fight about bathrooms. I’m here to fight for Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families.”
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Buttigieg said McBride’s response to Republicans “reminded everybody that they’re the ones who are worried about where other people go to the bathroom; she’s worried about how to make life more affordable for people who live in Delaware.” He argued that this put Republicans “on the defensive.”
“Let the speaker of the House … explain how, in a country that has crises ranging from the character of its democracy to the affordability of its housing, why he is spending one second of his time policing where one of his congressional colleagues gets to go to the bathroom,” Buttigieg added.
It’s not clear what role Buttigieg, a rising star in the Democratic Party, will take on next, as his position in Joe Biden’s presidential administration is set to come to an end in January.