Pete Buttigieg: 'When You Vote For Trump, You Are Tolerating Bad Things'
2020 hopeful slams President's support base
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Presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg slammed President Donald Trump's supporters during a three-day swing of Iowa counties that once voted for Barack Obama but flipped for Trump in 2016.
The mayor of South Bend said:
"When you vote for this president, particularly when you vote for him a second time, you are at best tolerating bad things and, at worst, having very bad things drawn out of you."
Buttigieg made the remarks as many Democratic electorates declared they wish for Trump to be the main target of the party's attack.
The 2020 hopeful has repeatedly dismissed the idea of "good" and "bad" people when asked how he planned to unite the country should he win the nomination and the White House next year.
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"I promise a presidency that will seek every possible way to do it. One of the things I have in mind for that first day is to ask people across the country to reach out to people you love, who voted differently, and call them up and not talk about politics, but talk about why you care about them," he said.
The mayor asserted his belief that the world wasn't made up "of good people and bad people," nor that a person's self-worth was based on how they voted.
"But I do think that the people we vote for can call out what is good in us or can call out what is bad in us," he said.
"And we have leaders right now who call out what is worst in us, who make us resentful and small, and backward-looking, and mean," he added.
"If we get this right, not because I'm better or somebody who votes for me is better than my opponent or somebody who votes for them, but because we'll have leadership that reaches what is best in us."
My latest questions on the Popeyes-less tour bus w/ Mayor Pete.
— Steadman™ (@AsteadWesley) November 4, 2019
"If Donald Trump has -- like you said -- enabled bad things, things like racism and sexism and homophobia -- how are the people who've voted for him not "bad people," as you said at last stop?"
Buttigieg: pic.twitter.com/Rkka2Py87W
Nancy Pelosi Warns Dems Their Radical Policy Proposals Will Re-Elect Trump in 2020
— Neon Nettle (@NeonNettle) November 2, 2019
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But Buttigieg's efforts to place himself as an alternative to Joe Biden haven't stopped him from potentially offending soft supporters, independents, and moderate Republicans considering caucusing for him on Feb. 3.
"We all love this country. We all recognize a flag that is supposed to be the thing we all have in common."
"But there's a difference between patriotism, real patriotism, love of country, and using the flag as a weapon to tell some people, they don't belong," he said in Algona.
"That's not what I'm talking about when I talk about loving our country. I'm talking about a much deeper understanding of what it means to love our country, one that recognizes that our country is made of people, Americans, and you cannot love our country if you hate half of the people in it."
Earlier this year, Buttigieg wrote of President Donald Trump's supporters who chanted “send her back,” referring to Radical Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), at the president's political rally.
When a reporter asked Buttigieg if he would try and win over Trump supporters, he replied:
“No.”
“The reality is there are a lot of committed racists whose vote I’m never going to get, and that’s alright,” Buttigieg said.
