There is a reason that Pete Buttigieg titled his election-season autobiographical release Shortest Way Home. “Home” for Buttigieg is, specifically, South Bend, Indiana. And sure enough, that is the place he returned to at a point in his life when he possessed a resume that is about as close to a guarantee as living the American Dream as possible. But for Buttigieg, the American Dream is not constructed upon the inherently selfish attribution so often willfully overlooked. The dream for the Mayor of South Bend is not one with a payoff off being rich enough to avoid taxes, entice careless loan officers and avoid responsibility for criminal activity. Consider Indiana to be something closer to Kansas, Buttigieg to be Dorothy and Oz to be exactly what it is: a place where a corrupt leader is exposed as a fraud and sent packing in his balloon. That was the dream, but in 2020, at least, Mayor Pete never even made it out of sepia-tone.
It is not just in metaphorical terms that Buttigieg clicked his heels and said there’s no place like home. Whether he actually ever said it or not, he meant it. The future of 29-year-old Mayor of South Bend may never actually have clicked or said the words, but he truly believed the sentiment of there being no place home enough to forego the obvious choice of heading off to a different kind of Oz and making millions of dollars doing whatever his Harvard and Oxford education had trained him to do. Just as he countered expectations by enlisting in the military voluntarily (as opposed to faking bone spurs to avoid being drafted involuntarily), so too is the story of Buttigieg rejecting the obvious choice of leaving small town life behind forever to seek his fortune in favor of actually returning there to try his hand at making the hard-hit home of Notre Dame great again.
Again, it is important to understand that while South Bend is specific, the siren song of public service that brought him “home” means, in a larger sense, back to a region of the country known as the Rust Belt. This is a region that has experienced more economic suffering over the last few decades than any region should. And that suffering is a big reason for why millions upon millions were able to vote twice for Donald Trump. Desperation breeds a willingness to ignore the most contemptuous of personalities when they are constantly promising you relief. Even if the relief never comes. Buttigieg promised his hometown relief and delivered on it as best he could. But it is the recognition that so much damage done to so many people over such a large expanse over such a prolonged period of time requires genuine commitment to be there for the people all year long, not just when their votes are needed. And that is why the title of his book—his manifesto—is titled Shortest Way Home. Because the shortest way home is never leaving it.
