“The more pain we are all experiencing from the high price of gas,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee last month, “the more benefit there is for those who can access electric vehicles.” That evoked a response from U.S. Representative Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.).
“So you’re saying the more pain we have, the more benefit we’re going to get?” the congressman asked.
“Of course—no,” said Buttigieg with a laugh.
“I think that’s what I heard you say,” countered Gimenez, who later tweeted, “the more pain Americans felt, the better for electric vehicles. It’s an evil way of governing.” Representative Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) ironically added, “the more pain Americans are experiencing, the better it is for our agenda,” and, according to Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), “the cruelty is the point.”
These three are on to something, and several back stories are playing out here.
The late C. S. Lewis exposed the trick of saying “we” when the speaker really means “you.” This empowers the speaker to put down others while pretending to display self-criticism. That is the dynamic going on with Pete Buttigieg, who is, as CNN described him in 2019, “a gay Christian” who is “driving the religious right nuts.”
As a man who often speaks “at length about his faith,” Buttigieg is surely familiar with the empirically verifiable Christian doctrine that human beings are deeply flawed. In the socialist view, however, human flaws and vices somehow disappear when someone is elected to public office or employed by the government. In fact, their flaws and vices don’t disappear, and access to the levers of government power, with little or no accountability, can easily amplify them.
Under socialist superstition, virtually everything government does is for the greater good. The people are to believe that no politician or bureaucrat would ever use the power of the state against his political opponents, or people he simply doesn’t like. By saying “we” must experience pain when he means “you,” Buttigieg exposes that ruse in fine style.
The transportation secretary can inflict pain on the people and claim it is for the benefit of all. It’s really for the benefit of his agenda. As Cruz said, “the cruelty is the point,” a form of punishment for those less than worshipful of Buttigieg, who models another prevailing dynamic.
Pete Buttigieg is a gay Christian in a same-sex marriage. In the weltanschauung of the woke, the dictatorship of the subjunctive mood, these become accomplishments and job qualifications.
For example, when fired by new San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, attorney Alicia Hurtado claimed “I am the highest-ranking LGBTQ member of the management team at that office.” In the woke view, this status somehow overrides actual job performance, an issue that came up when Buttigieg ran for president.
“At a time when economic inequality and racial justice are at the nation’s political forefront,” CNBC noted, “Buttigieg’s candidacy could be hamstrung by the impression that he has not tried hard enough to improve the conditions of South Bend’s poor and minority communities.” According to resident Shawn White, 24, “Ain’t shit changed. How is he gonna run the whole country if you can’t even get your city right first?”
In the view of many others, Mayor Pete didn’t get it right. He didn’t get to run the country but Joe Biden tapped him to run the Department of Transportation. To say the least, his performance hasn’t exactly been stellar.
During a crippling supply-chain crisis, Buttigieg was off on a two-month “paternity leave,” a move he defended as work, “not a vacation.” The former mayor evidently believed his job was to model gay marriage, not to keep the supply chain moving. When it stalled, the federal transportation secretary blamed the people.
“Supply, demand and the pandemic” are the main forces behind the supply chain bottlenecks, Buttigieg explained. “Americans have more money in their pockets compared to a year ago. Where they used to maybe spend it on going to shows or travel, they’ve been more likely to spend it on things, which is why actually we have a record number of goods coming through our ports.”
As embattled Americans might note, Biden’s Transportation Secretary failed to quantify the money now in their pockets compared to a year ago. Buttigieg failed to pin down the rise in the rate of inflation, a big issue for American workers, and he did not put a number to the cargo ships waiting to unload at Pacific coastal ports.
Americans might think the transportation secretary should be forthcoming with such vital information. The people can be forgiven for thinking Pete Buttigieg is a bust. On the other hand, there are grounds for gratitude.
As the former South Bend mayor confirms, human flaws and vices do not disappear when someone gains office or a government job. Being openly gay and in a same-sex marriage is not an accomplishment, a job qualification, or any guarantee of competence. By touting “more pain” for the people as somehow beneficial, Pete Buttigieg exposes a dynamic that Havana-born Carlos Gimenez and his family experienced firsthand.
Sado-Stalinist dictator Fidel Castro took great delight in imprisoning and torturing political opponents, many of them black. Sado-socialism is now mounting a surge in America, inflicting pain on the people to benefit the Biden Junta’s agenda. Sanctimonious incompetent Pete Buttigieg is the perfect exponent for this evil way of governing.