In late March, with the public’s appetite for information about upstart Democratic presidential primary candidate Pete Buttigieg building by the day, Nathan J. Robinson wrote and published a lengthy editorial in his magazine, Current Affairs, offering an extremely unfavorable reading of his memoir. The task of fact-checking Robinson’s entire piece is daunting — it launches a barrage of deceptive talking points in 11,000 words — so for now I am collecting my rebuttals here where they can be easily shared.

Demolishing houses

Robinson’s editorial raises a lot of concerns about all of the houses being torn down. It talks about “a plan to coerce those who possessed dilapidated houses into either spending money or having the houses cleared away for development.” It sounds concerning, but the key word is “possessed.” Possessing a house is not the same thing as living in it. It quotes an article saying “In many cases, Buttigieg said, the homeowners proved impossible to find amid a string of active and inactive investment companies.” It sounds like nobody was taking responsibility for many of these houses.

Later in the same article (and NOT quoted in the ~11,000 words of this piece):

“South Bend City Council President Tim Scott, a task force member and fellow Democrat, said many houses had become a safety concern. He said no one lost the homes in which they were living and the city made every effort to reach and work with homeowners.”

Okay, so now it seems possible that nobody was displaced. Why are we talking about houses again? Because a self-identified socialist is concerned about the property rights of faceless investment companies? Or because it presents an opportunity for the author to imply that Buttigieg is fine with tearing down peoples’ homes?

One more thing: Robinson says the houses were “cleared away for development,” painting a picture of developers eager to gentrify a neighborhood from which poor people were being displaced. From everything I’ve read, it certainly sounds like the houses were “cleared away” because they were unsafe and, I’m guessing, contributing to a deterioration of quality of life in the city in a number of ways. Again, according to the very article cited by Robinson:

“He’s still not sure precisely what to do with all of those empty lots. Buttigieg decided against creating parks, for fear of adding overhead to an already strapped city budget. Some investors have built new homes. Some properties are community gardens. Some are available for future development. The majority remain privately owned, empty lots.”

Here is the article referenced, for those looking for a local perspective on Pete’s efforts to revitalize South Bend: https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2019/03/21/pete-buttigieg-democratic-presidential-hopeful-south-bend-indiana-turnaround-city/3165477002/

Eliminating city jobs

When Robinson says that when Buttigieg “found that it would save money to put robotic arms on city garbage trucks and fire human trash collectors, [he] was ‘prepared to eliminate the jobs,’ in part because the robots ‘led to lower injury rates’ (fewer injuries being the predictable consequence of fewer jobs),” he neglects to mention that Buttigieg decided to go through with it because (from Shortest Way Home) “the city could offer the workers other jobs, provided they earned a commercial driver’s license.” He goes on to say that “half the affected workers did so, and half left city employment altogether.”

Economic disparity

Robinson notes that the median household income for African Americans in South Bend is $14,000 lower than the national average for African Americans, and that the poverty rate for African Americans is almost double that of African Americans nationally. Meanwhile (and not mentioned by Robinson), the median household income for South Bend in general is $19,000 lower than the national average, and the poverty rate for South Bend is more than double the national figure.

If the median household income for African Americans in South Bend is $14,000 lower than the national average for African Americans, and the median household income for South Bend (in general) is $19,000 lower than the national average (again in general), what does that show? Not much of anything, other than that South Bend has seen a lot of economic hardship. But Robinson only tells you a piece of the story because he wants to make Pete look bad.

South Bend median household income: https://www.bestplaces.net/economy/city/indiana/south_bend

National poverty rate here: https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2018/09/poverty-rate-drops-third-consecutive-year-2017.html

Pete’s Profiles in Courage essay

Elsewhere, Robinson mentions Buttigieg’s high school essay about Bernie Sanders, noting that Sanders was his second choice. His first choice was Carolyn McCarthy, who he admired for her gun control advocacy (by my math, this was about a year after Columbine). It turned out that the winning essay the year before had also been about McCarthy, so Buttigieg wrote about Sanders instead.

I really don’t understand what Robinson is trying to say here. That Bernie couldn’t be the second choice of any true progressive? He says something a little later about “throwing Bernie under the bus” by making his campaign about “generational justice” (because Bernie is 40+ years older). Buttigieg chose Sanders because he “succeeded by being totally transparent and relentless about his values” and “came by his values honestly.” But the qualities so admired by high school senior Buttigieg are the very ones that Robinson is trying to convince us that today’s Buttigieg lacks. By burying him under a mountain of disingenuous arguments and insinuation, apparently.

About me

I am a New York-based social worker who has worked in the South Bronx for over 5 years. I have been working for social justice for almost 20 years, starting with helping to organize the housekeeping and physical plant staff at my university. I recently helped to organize 400 employees of the agency where I work and negotiate our first union contract.