We “rethink the week” with Stephen Pimpare, Professor at the University of New Hampshire and a nationally recognized expert on poverty, homelessness, and U.S. social policy; and Rachel Paine Caufield, professor of political science at Drake University.
We discuss Pete Buttigieg’s tone-deaf comments demonstrating a lack of understanding that unequal educational opportunities are caused by systemic racial discrimination and not by a lack of motivation among black students and families (“blame the victim”). At the same time, Mayor Pete is promoting a “grey new deal” focused on improving the lives of older people – which, in Iowa and New Hampshire, mean that the Mayor is more concerned about winning the votes of older white people than the votes of minorities and the younger generations. We wonder whether this strategy will help Mayor Pete once the Iowa and NH primaries have ended and the race moves to more urban settings.
We also examine Buttigieg’s condemnation of the kind of “large-scale changes” proposed by the Sanders/Warren wing of the Democratic party. Pete seems to be following the 1990’s centrist (DLC) playbook that Bill Clinton used to get elected. But will a go-slow, “Republican-light” agenda work as well now, when more and more Americans are suffering economically, feeling desperate and hopeless about the direction of the country?
We discuss Trump’s strategy of using bite-sized messaging to activate people’s anger, and his effectiveness regardless of whether the messaging contains truthful facts. In contrast, we wonder about the centrist Democrats’ emphasis on “working across the aisle” in the face of most Republican leaders’ refusal to negotiate very far away from their extremely right-wing starting positions.
Where will all this end? Which views will prevail – both in the primaries and in the general election? We try to maintain some perspective, which requires long-term patience.
