All Politics Are Local
This book was written and published in conjunction with Pete Buttigieg's unlikely run for President in the 2020 Democratic primary season and his even more unlikely success. The mayor of the country’s 310th most populous city was challenging a former Vice President, a Senator who very nearly upset Hillary Clinton for the party’s nomination four years earlier, a handful of other Senators, a couple of billionaires, the mayor the most populous city in America and yet another Senator would leave that job to become the next Vice President. And at one time, briefly yes, but even so, Buttigieg enjoyed all the status and targeting that comes being declare the front-runner.
The fact that he was a mayor of a town with a population never compared to entire countries is emblematic of his approach to politics in general and his cure for the problems facing the Democratic Party in the post-Trump era. That the Democrats had forgotten all politics is local led to the abandonment of grass roots efforts to consolidate power leading to Republican control of state legislatures and all the power therein to rig the electoral landscape at the Congressional level.
Bringing Back Trust
A major issue for Buttigieg on a private level expands to become a theme that pervades throughout the book. As a soldier who served in the Middle East in the post-911 period, he learned the vitality of being able to trust your comrades as if your life depended on it because it does. He translates that into he political arena by explicitly and obliquely by suggesting that the ability to trust that those in power in the government are putting the interests of the country ahead of their own comes with the bonus of improving trust at the personal level.
The division worsened by the Trump administration trickled down so that those who didn’t trust Trump also no longer trusted his supporters any more than his supporters trusted anyone who opposed Trump. The answer to the division ripping the country apart, the mayor suggests, begins with restoring faith that the America politicians can be trusted to put the interests of the entire country ahead of their own electorate or themselves.
Economic Empowerment
Mayor Pete is known more for being openly gay than for any actual achievements by most people outside South Bend, but inside the city he respected and was popular due to a commitment to making economic theory concrete in the real world. Standing in sharp opposition not just to the myth of being a successful businessman that helped launch Donald Trump into the White House but also in opposition to the actually rich and successful business running for President alongside him, Buttigieg actually has education and training in economics. Economics is, of course, entirely different from business: the study of economics actually takes into account consequences other than profit. The result is that the book is filled with more genuine details about his agenda for making American great through economic improvement that is actually viable than most all the speeches given by all the other candidates over the course of a year.
