Pete Buttigieg, the popular South Bend, Indiana mayor running for president, might have fired the real first shot at an opponent in the Democratic Party nomination race.
According to the 37-year-old presidential hopeful, supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders and President Donald Trump have a lot in common.
For Buttigieg, who has risen to top-tier status in the race in recent polls, Sanders and Trump have been able to tap in the economic anxiety of disaffected citizens to build their loyal followings.
While campaigning in New Hampshire, the man who could become the country’s first openly gay president, told Nashua students: “I think the sense of anger and disaffection that comes from seeing that the numbers are fine, like unemployment’s low, like all that, like you said GDP is growing, and yet a lot of neighborhoods and families are living like this recovery never even happened. They’re stuck.”
He also added: “It just kind of turns you against the system in general and then you’re more likely to want to vote to blow up the system, which could lead you to somebody like Bernie and it could lead you to somebody like Trump. That’s how we got where we are.”
As if it was not clear enough, Buttigieg confirmed with the following statement that he was more than eager to draw some contrast with the failed 2016 presidential candidate from Vermont.
Buttigieg explained: “Part of running for president is you wind up competing with people that you like or appreciated or admired many years back. I don’t have the same views on everything that he does.”
In an attack on Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg compared him to Donald Trump. A better comparison would have been looking in a mirror.
Both Buttigieg and Trump cut their teeth gentrifying cities at the expense of low income minority communities. pic.twitter.com/6c2Y0uPWtP
— Walker Bragman (@WalkerBragman) April 21, 2019
Although it is still early in the race, experts say attacking Sanders makes a lot of sense for Buttigieg. If he can get Sanders’ poll numbers down for the 77-year-old self-avowed socialist, he could turn the primary into a two-person race with former Vice President Joe Biden.
At that point, he could turn this fight into a choice between the past and the fututre. American voters often bet on the future when given the opportunity.
Sanders supporters are furious over the Trump comparison, and some of them say that Buttigieg is just doing the bidding of the Democratic Party’s establishment that is eager to get Sanders out of the race.
