Ever since Richard Nixon appeared on “Laugh-In,” clumsily repeating the catchphrase, “Sock it to me?” presidential candidates have tried to appear cool with varying degrees of failure.

I mean, let’s face it: Most presidential candidates don’t get to where they are by cultivating a kind of rock-star cool. Yes, even Donald Trump, though he may have been a larger-than-life real-estate developer, was still a real-estate developer. And he was the one who came from the private sector.

The rest of the lot are usually Model U.N. kids who made good or Robert “Beto” O’Rourke. Neither is really an appealing backstory.

So, if you’re Beto, you drag out the skateboard. If you’re Bill Clinton, you emphasize your love of the saxophone and Fleetwood Mac. And if you’re Pete Buttigieg, you brown-bag it with Desus and Mero.

If you’re not familiar with Messrs. Desus and Mero, they’re two podcasters-turned-Showtime kinda-sorta-pundits who lean to the left of the aisle — think back to when MTV used to have those “Rock the Vote” specials, aim slightly higher and you’ll get a decent idea of what the tone is.

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You may remember when they had Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a guest and she tried to explain the whole cow farts thing (and somehow made it sound worse).

Speaking of making one seem worse, Pete Buttigieg was on the show this week. Desus and Mero are both from the Bronx, so they decided to make him “uptown certified.”

Part of this included drinking from brown paper bags:

They made sure to get Buttigieg some whiskey (he’s known to be something of an aficionado — again, gotta cultivate that cool factor) and talked about his service in Afghanistan.

“Oh my goodness, that is good stuff!” Buttigieg exclaimed about the whiskey.

“Keep it low in case the cops go by. They be trippin’ at the end of the month, bro,” he was told.

Then there was a bit of ranking the various branches of the armed forces and where the Space Force would theoretically fit in.

However, here was the thing — Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, was basically courting urban voters on Desus and Mero by breaking the law and drinking liquor out of a plastic bag.

He was also doing it in trousers, a white shirt and a blue tie — not usually the attire of those using a brown paper bag in order to get around public drinking ordinances. His companions were a bit more casual in their dress.

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Some on Twitter noticed that one of these things was not like the others:

Nothing to see here. Just @PeteButtigieg pandering to blacks by breaking the law and drinking in public. “Maybe if I do something illegal, blacks will think I’m one of them!” pic.twitter.com/qO9MHFq5Z1 — Jon Miller (@MillerStream) June 9, 2019

Pete Buttigieg has entered the race for cringiest candidate 2020 by pandering to low income voters by day drinking a 40 out of a paper bag…

things are getting interesting! Pocahontas is still in the lead though with “Beto” closely trailing her. #CringeFest2020 #KAG pic.twitter.com/4b4HVJjkZi — 🇺🇸Jairo Vera🇨🇴 (@JairoEVera1) June 10, 2019

Now, I’m sure that this segment didn’t come as a surprise to Buttigieg. All of these stunts are run by campaign officials, after all.

That means someone, somewhere signed off on this and thought it was a great idea.

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This is cellophane-transparent. Buttigieg clearly has an issue outside of his base, which is about as anti-populist as you could possibly get. Outside of that, his campaign doesn’t have much in the way of legs.

So instead, we get this. This is what you do when you’re trying to join a frat, not run for president.

Pandering is nothing new. Pandering to try to seem hip is nothing new, either. Remember Beto’s skateboard. Clinton’s “boxers or briefs” moment? Elizabeth Warren livestreaming herself with the beer?

At least I can say this much: Twitter seems to be socking it to Buttigieg.

Voters — those who see this — will end up doing the same, I think.

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