Pete Buttigieg Now Taking Cues from Campus Leftists, Wants to Erase Thomas Jefferson
“Over time, you develop and evolve on the things you choose to honor … Jefferson is more problematic”
For the last few years campus progressives, most notably at Hofstra University, have been trying to erase Thomas Jefferson from the public square. Now 2020 Democratic hopeful Pete Buttigieg has joined the effort.
Anyone who’s familiar with the concept of Year Zero knows what this is really about. Still, it’s surprising to hear it coming from a presidential candidate.
Lukas Mikelionis reports at FOX News:
Buttigieg backs far-left idea of erasing Thomas Jefferson’s name: ‘It’s the right thing to do’
Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said Friday that things named after President Thomas Jefferson should be renamed because that’s the “right thing to do.”
Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., who became the rising star of the 2020 Democratic primary, echoed the far-left calls to rename buildings or events that carry the names of prominent U.S. figures on the grounds that they were owners of slaves.
The mayor was asked during “The Hugh Hewitt Show” on radio whether the name of the annual Indiana Democratic dinner, named the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, should be renamed as both presidents were holders of slaves.
“Yeah, we’re doing that in Indiana. I think it’s the right thing to do,” Buttigieg said, according to the Washington Free Beacon. He then offered a tepid defense of the Founding Father while agreeing that events shouldn’t be named after him.
“Over time, you develop and evolve on the things you choose to honor … Jefferson is more problematic,” he said.”
Listen to the audio below:
People on Twitter have some thoughts about this. Via Twitchy:
Pete Buttigieg wants Thomas Jefferson events and buildings renamed https://t.co/sTD7rAKL8j pic.twitter.com/Ef0dlqAOYY
— New York Post (@nypost) May 18, 2019
I mean are these really the priorities of a serious presidential candidate?
— mikel (@mf_soul) May 18, 2019
I was actually thinking this might be a relatively tolerable Democrat. I was clearly mistaken.
— shielded (@catchinflak) May 18, 2019
Dude, if we follow this train of thought we have to change the name of the capital and a state
— Nilesh Kumaraswamy (@Bolobulge) May 18, 2019
I want his campaign erased.
— Kevin Davis (@kevindavis338) May 18, 2019
That’s about all we need to know about this one. And then there were 22 or whatever.
— Robert Godfrey (@RobertGodfrey9) May 18, 2019
Do we get rid of the nickel?
— j (@j46637332) May 18, 2019
They’re trying to erase history. Good or bad, we have history. This is what totalitarianism regimes do.
— Gary D (@gdedilectis) May 18, 2019
Remember when the left told us it was only about Confederate monuments?
Good times.
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Comments
For me, the erasure of history is the number one most egregious and worrisome indication that a person or organization has gone full Soviet. Never go full Soviet.
This guy is obviously capable of instituting all the loathsome features of the grisly Soviet style of government.
“Only the first swath cut by the scythe is difficult.”
–Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago
His parents were big Marxists. The nut doesn’t fall far from the tree.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/pete-buttigiegs-father-was-a-marxist-professor-who-lauded-the-communist-manifesto
The father of Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg was a Marxist professor who spoke fondly of the Communist Manifesto and dedicated a significant portion of his academic career to the work of Italian Communist Party founder Antonio Gramsci, an associate of Vladimir Lenin.
Ask him about Mohammad.
Exactly.
We can’t have buildings or other things that honor Thomas Jefferson because he owned slaves, but we can litter our country with mosques that honor Mohammad, a slave-trading, slave-owning, war-mongering, blatantly sexist, child-marrying pedophile?
Clearly under the left’s new rules, we need to outlaw islam. As Buttigieg would say,”it’s the right thing to do.”
I don’t think ButterEggs has the balls to go after Muhammad 🙂
Of course he doesn’t, but that is why he should be questioned about it at every opportunity. Endorsing the erasure of slave-owning Jefferson, but not slave-owning Mohammad, from U.S. buildings and memorials is logically inconsistent. Buttigieg’s hypocrisy should continually be pointed out and he should be forced to defend his position — not just to highlight the idiocy of his stance, but also for the fun of watching him twist himself into a pretzel trying to rationalize his position.
Of course he does. In any Islamic country he could shout about himself from the highest building just before they threw him off.
Perhaps his husband is the keeper of the balls.
“Buttigieg backs far-left idea of erasing Thomas Jefferson’s name: ‘It’s the right thing to do’”
Forget Jefferson. How about all the stuff named after Democrat KKK Exalted Cyclops Robert Byrd?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DtArodaWoAAIoHD.jpg
I propose we erase Washington.
Starting with D.C.
That government wants to make slaves of us all.
This guy really scares me, but I still cannot definitively say why. Just something about him. Any ideas?
He’s smooth and likeable. My first opinion of him was we’re looking at the face of danger. He has charisma and a winning smile.
PDJT pretty much seems to have knocked him down with the Alfred Newman nickname. But he’s young, smart and is learning a lot is my guess. Be wary of his future. And America if he ever gets elected to federal office.
Well then we should erase all memories of John F. Kennedy since he did worse than Jefferson: he stole an election and abused women (see hookers and Marilyn Monroe). Then we go to Robert Byrd, the former grand Kleagle of the KKK; Ted Kennedy (he killed a woman, was a drunk) and FDR who interned the Japanese (a lot worse than owning a few slaves). We’ll wait…
Waaaaay back in 2010, Obama still believed marriage was only between a man and a woman. If you say that now, its a hangin’ offense.
Just like the Taliban and the Khmer Rouge, tear down all idols and erase history. This is genuine fascism.
“The right thing to do.”
This ridiculous twit can’t even manage to come up with a respectable argument.
Back in the 60’s there was an expression: ‘America, love it or leave it’. I’m on board with an update embracing our new text loving society: ‘America, if you don’t like it: STFU of GTFO’.
I’ve had it with these history revisionists. It was what it was. Times change, values change, people change. Deal with it.
Statues, coins, the names of schools and towns are only the beginning. It’s Jefferson’s white privileged words and ideas that the Left has evolved beyond and which are being redefined or otherwise erased.
I guess President Buttigieg will have to create a new Department of Truth and History to manage NewSpeak and the memory hole.
Or maybe it will be part of the US Department of Education, the NYC version of which is institutionlizing ideas like “white supremacy is characterized by perfectionism, a belief in meritocracy, and the Protestant work ethic.” That sure sounds like Jefferson; that kind of thing has to go.
https://nypost.com/2019/05/18/nyc-schools-chancellor-richard-carranza-has-made-whiteness-toxic-doe-insiders-claim/
It’s funny how the leftists hector us about cultural relativism–we can’t judge cannibals by the mores of our culture–yet don’t see that they are demanding we ignore it in our own culture.
All of this anti-Confederacy, anti- slave owning founding fathers is designed to do only one thing, garner support from the Black voting block and from liberal whites who have been indoctrinated to believe that slavery was a permanent stain upon the nation which must be atoned for, for eternity. It is total BS.
When one looks at slavery in America, it has to be understood in the context of thee time. Slavery was widespread, in the world. Whether it was the impressing of innocents into legal bondage or the sentencing of debtors to bondage for debt, it was widely practiced. Within 100 years of its founding, the US fought a civil war which was due, in part to the abolition of that institution. This resulted in the death of 110,000 union troops in battle, 225,000 to disease and the wounding, many resulting in permanent disability, of 275,000. All of these were people fighting to abolish slavery. The economic damage to the country was immense. That was a big price to pay to end slavery. So, it would appear that the nation paid the price for the institution of slavery generations ago.
What people can not afford to be is myopic. A sinner can be a saint, in one regard, and a saint can be a sinner in another. The Founding Fathers were not perfect, even by the standards of their time. But, their efforts created the the greatest nation of modern times. A nation which has bettered the world largely through example. To cast their memory aside for a delusion is simply absurd.
I propose we get rid of candidates whose names begin with “Butt” and people who write about “butt-buddies”. Otherwise we’d be the butt of jokes!
Jefferson is important to the history of the United States of America. Butthead is not important to anybody. Given the choice, I’ll stick with Jefferson.
So what’s the ultimate target of this program to erase American history? Demolish some statues? Change some building names? Street signs? Names of cities and states? Nah, that’s kid stuff; mere idolatry. The big prize is the paperwork. Bill of Rights? It has the fingerprints of Dead White Guys all over it. Away with it—’cause hey, it’s the right thing to do. (Of course Jefferson had nothing to do with the Bill of Rights, being in Paris at the time, but his buddy Madison did, and he’s almost as bad.)
This guy is such a useless bozo.
And yes, he does look like Alfred E. Neuman.
“Over time, you develop and evolve on the things you choose to honor … Jefferson is more problematic,” he said.”
That’s an interesting quote you chose, but not surprised. Your source is a Fox News story about a Washington Free Beacon story about the original interview. Which is the only way you could turn Buttigieg saying there is a lot to honor and celebrate about Jefferson to “Jefferson’s name should be removed”, something he never actually said.
You posted the whole interview, but didn’t bother to listen to it, because you knew your regular readers wouldn’t either.
This comment makes no sense at all. The actual Mayor Pete comments are embedded in full, as you yourself note, so what’s the problem?
You seem to suggest that the post is misleading in some way and that our readers are incurious morons who gobble up whatever they’re fed. Neither is true.
What is misleading in this post? Did Mayor Pete not say that Jefferson needs to be removed from the public square in terms of statues, dinners, and building names, etc.? Hint: he said exactly that. He said that the deciding factor for him is that people are “hurt” by seeing the name “Jefferson” or otherwise being reminded of his existence. Because slavery.
It’s not hard, Awing, all you have to do is listen to his words (I say this because my guess is this is an enlightening example of projection: you are the one who did not listen to what Mayor Pete said, and you are the one pretending he said something other than he did . . . possibly because you saw a Facebook post or tweet that told you otherwise?)
I did listen to the entire interview, and he explicitly says he does not want to erase Thomas Jefferson and never endorses his name being removed from anything.
That quote y’all took: “Over time, you develop and evolve on the things you choose to honor … Jefferson is more problematic”
Do you think anyone would read that as saying removing Jefferson’s name from things is more problematic than whatever was in the ellipses?
Respectfully, go ellipse yourself, Awing1.
Quote where he actually says that. You quoted the Fox News article at length, odd how you missed actually quoting him saying this thing you claim he said. Unfortunately, I can’t logically quote something he doesn’t say, so the onus is on you to show where he says it. I can quote Hugh Hewitt, the conservative interviewer, though:
The guy is a major squish. What point do you think you are proving? That his words contain a little double speak?
Thanks for contributing nothing new.
Peet: ” will no one rid me of this troublesome priest, err, founding father..?”
“I think @PeteButtigieg would stop well short of tearing down the Jefferson Memorial.”
Oh, OK, that’s comforting, never mind.