by Maurice BP-Weeks, Co-Executive Director at ACRE

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

So much is at stake in this presidential election. Climate disasters and environmental catastrophes are getting worse by the day. White nationalism and fascism are on the rise and

have infiltrated the top levels of governments globally. The scale of financial and tech corporations’ power is unprecedented, as is their level of wealth extraction from black, brown and indigenous communities. At ACRE, we know that there is so much work to do to fight against these horrible trends, and that the most important work will happen through community-led campaigns. As we know, these aligning forces focus their energy on capturing elected officials and government, often making a strong show of community power that can beat

back their money our only recourse. We’re proud to be involved in such fights around the country. Recent fights like Moms4Housing by our partners at the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, or Athena, the groundbreaking campaign to take on Amazon are two such examples of how to fight for change in truly transformative and direct ways.

But we can’t ignore, especially in the era of Trump, how important the American Presidency is for people’s everyday lives, not just in the United States, but globally. The Trump administration is a megaphone for white nationalism, facilitates racist tax scams, doubles down on climate denial and puts the entire globe at risk in a new way almost every hour. While these issues are structural, a new President can reverse some of the most insidious Trump administration policies and enact new ones to take big and immediate steps towards a world that works for more than just the top wealthy white few.

With the stakes so high, we can’t afford to have a Presidential candidate who cozies up to mega-corporations and wealthy donors, is known in his city for his horrible racial justice record and has little overall experience as a leader. All of those vulnerabilities would play directly into the hands of Trump, spell disaster for the general election, and, if Pete were to be elected President, put the country on the wrong track. He’s shown himself to be manipulative and dismissive and, at least a few times, has demonstrated a lack of understanding of systemic racism. Pete Buttigieg is the candidate we must stay away from.

Over the next few weeks, ACRE will be highlighting some of the dangers of a potential Buttigieg administration. We’ll be looking at the effect he would have on a number of our issue areas including healthcare and pharma, policing and incarceration, and Wall Street and tech accountability. We will start by looking at the impact of a potential Buttigieg Presidency on the fight for affordable housing in the United States.

No one should for a moment take our anti-endorsement as a call to elect “anyone but Pete” in the primary. In fact, Joe Biden in particular also has a despicable record on essentially everything that ACRE and our partners care about. He also appears uninterested in adapting his campaign messaging to modern times. His nomination would likewise be an unmitigated disaster and demonstrate the Democratic Party’s failure to draw the right lessons from the 2016 election. The biggest lesson is simple: we cannot simply press rewind. We need an administration that can take us forward in transformational ways. As we all decide which candidate to support, we urge everyone to keep that important lesson in mind. With that as our rubric and a desire to dismantle racialized capitalism at our center, we say no to Joe Biden and especially Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg.