Why I Do Not Support Mayor Pete
Mayor Pete is an appealing candidate for president. He is highly intelligent and speaks wonderfully.
At the same time, Mayor Pete has limitations that bother me greatly. He is much better than the incumbent. I will support him if nominated. I will not, however, support him in seeking the nomination.
The major weakness that Mayor Pete has which may interfere with his being nominated and elected deals with his history related to black people in South Bend.
His initial priority in South Bend as major was to have 1000 dilapidated houses demolished. In doing this, he disproportionately hurt parts of the black community there. Little was done to avoid hurting these people. The "bigger" cause was the purported economic vitality of the city. That this was done at the expense of black people was never ameliorated and/or acknowledged.
Mayor Pete also had the black police chief fired. This also was unpopular with black people.
To win the nomination as president in the democratic party, one needs the support of black and Latino people. More importantly, to win the election, one needs a strong turnout of black and Latino people. White people, particularly men, disproportionately support the president. Hillary Clinton was defeated in significant part because the turnout wasn't great enough among non-white people.
Mayor Pete is unlikely to get major support from non-white people. His base of support is upper-middle class white people. This will make it much harder to win in 2020.
More troubling to me is Mayor Pete's support of Israel and his lack of support of the Palestinians.
Mayor Pete is not "horrible" as the incumbent president is on Israel. He does speak up against the most vivid, horrible things, done in our name, but his approach is simply wrong.
Mayor Pete was "educated" about Israel on a trip there sponsored by the American Jewish Committee.
He blames Hamas for the problems in Gaza. He does not blame Israel for its strangulation of Gaza and its citizens. He fails to acknowledge the apartheid state which exists, instead, praising Israel's "democracy". His praise is similar, unfortunately, to the "democracy" that the U.S. had when black people had few rights. Palestinian citizens of Israel have quite limited rights. They are not allowed to live in much of Israel, similar to how South Africa and the U.S. both have been. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have far fewer rights.
The other writings here document much more of this.
I made a mistake believing in Mayor Pete. He is a middle-of-the-road white man. He is moderately good on a lot of things, and weak on some other important issues.
At the same time, Mayor Pete has limitations that bother me greatly. He is much better than the incumbent. I will support him if nominated. I will not, however, support him in seeking the nomination.
The major weakness that Mayor Pete has which may interfere with his being nominated and elected deals with his history related to black people in South Bend.
His initial priority in South Bend as major was to have 1000 dilapidated houses demolished. In doing this, he disproportionately hurt parts of the black community there. Little was done to avoid hurting these people. The "bigger" cause was the purported economic vitality of the city. That this was done at the expense of black people was never ameliorated and/or acknowledged.
Mayor Pete also had the black police chief fired. This also was unpopular with black people.
To win the nomination as president in the democratic party, one needs the support of black and Latino people. More importantly, to win the election, one needs a strong turnout of black and Latino people. White people, particularly men, disproportionately support the president. Hillary Clinton was defeated in significant part because the turnout wasn't great enough among non-white people.
Mayor Pete is unlikely to get major support from non-white people. His base of support is upper-middle class white people. This will make it much harder to win in 2020.
More troubling to me is Mayor Pete's support of Israel and his lack of support of the Palestinians.
Mayor Pete is not "horrible" as the incumbent president is on Israel. He does speak up against the most vivid, horrible things, done in our name, but his approach is simply wrong.
Mayor Pete was "educated" about Israel on a trip there sponsored by the American Jewish Committee.
He blames Hamas for the problems in Gaza. He does not blame Israel for its strangulation of Gaza and its citizens. He fails to acknowledge the apartheid state which exists, instead, praising Israel's "democracy". His praise is similar, unfortunately, to the "democracy" that the U.S. had when black people had few rights. Palestinian citizens of Israel have quite limited rights. They are not allowed to live in much of Israel, similar to how South Africa and the U.S. both have been. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have far fewer rights.
The other writings here document much more of this.
I made a mistake believing in Mayor Pete. He is a middle-of-the-road white man. He is moderately good on a lot of things, and weak on some other important issues.
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