The Remarkable Effectiveness of Pete Buttigieg on Fox News

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The Remarkable Effectiveness of Pete Buttigieg on Fox News

By Benjamin Wallace-Wells at the New Yorket

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-remarkable-effectiveness-of-pete-buttigieg-on-fox-news?utm_campaign=falcon&utm_brand=tny&utm_medium=social&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=twitter&mbid=social_twitter

October 15, 2020

"SNIP....

It’s tempting to conclude that Buttigieg’s star turns say less about him than about Fox News, whose hosts can find themselves at a loss when liberal positions are presented in earnest.Photograph by Elizabeth Frantz / Reuters

Television suits Peter Buttigieg. He is a dispassionate figure in an emotional medium. In response to ridiculousness, his face stays largely still, but his peaked eyebrows rise a notch. As a politician, Buttigieg’s great trick (it’s also a flaw) is to never take anything personally: he blinks away the noisy, slanderous business of daily politics in pursuit of what political consultants might call the point of essential contrast.

Lately, Buttigieg has been not taking things personally on Fox News. Liberals, even those who had grown tired of his dogged reasonableness, have celebrated each of his three recent appearances on the network as a tour de force and a rout. Just before the Vice-Presidential debate, last Wednesday, Buttigieg was asked on Fox News about the policy differences between Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. He replied, “Well, there’s a classic parlor game of trying to find a little bit of daylight between running mates, and if people want to play that game we could look into why an evangelical Christian like Mike Pence wants to be on a ticket with a President caught with a porn star.” Pence, President, porn—he captured the basic deal Republicans had made with power in three tight plosives. (Slayer Pete, Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times named this persona, brilliantly.)

It’s tempting to conclude that Buttigieg’s recent star turns on Fox News say less about him than they do about the network, whose hosts spend so much time ridiculing liberal positions that they can find themselves at a loss when those positions are presented in earnest. Last week, the “Fox and Friends” host Steve Doocy asked Buttigieg about President Trump’s choice not to participate in a virtual debate with Biden. “All of us have had to get used to virtual formats,” Buttigieg said, pointing out that parents trying to manage home learning had it much rougher than the President of the United States. He went on, “The only reason that we’re here in the first place is that the President of the United States is still contagious, as far as we know, with a deadly disease.” That clip, like his response to the question about Harris, went viral, partly because Doocy kept encouraging Buttigieg, as he usually does ideologically friendlier guests, with a series of confident-sounding local-news-anchor noises: “Sure . . . Right . . . Yeah . . . Sure . . . Right . . . Right . . . Sure.”

Fox News has always been a good venue for Buttigieg, for reasons that don’t have much to do with the dimness of its morning hosts. Last spring, a Fox audience stood at the end of a town hall with Buttigieg. “Wow! A standing ovation!” the Fox News anchor Chris Wallace said, apparently surprised by it. The network’s orientation, on both the hyperbolic evening shows and the Doocified morning ones, borrows the spirit, if not the prudity, of religious conservatives: the heartland is virtuous, and the liberal city sinful. Beamed in from Indiana, Buttigieg has a way of inverting all of that. On MSNBC on Sunday, in the capstone performance of a very active television week, Buttigieg was asked about a remark that Amy Coney Barrett planned to make during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing—that before finishing any opinion, she reads it from the perspective of the people she is ruling against. “Well,” Buttigieg said, “two of her would-be colleagues, Justice Alito and Justice Thomas, wrote a memo last week essentially putting marriage equality back on the table, in their minds. So if she really wants to understand the party she might rule against, I guess I would invite her to follow that process and put herself in the shoes of somebody who was married and then was effectively forcibly divorced by judicial fiat. Told that they were no longer married to their spouse. Told that their family was no longer a family.” Buttigieg has always fit most naturally into the political spectrum as a family-values progressive; his latest book—the ostensible reason for this media tour—is titled “Trust: America’s Best Chance.” On “Morning Joe,” promoting the book, he offered that “this could actually be a moment of turnaround when it comes to trust . . . but not if we stay on the path that we’re on right now.” (What plays on Fox News as bracingly moral can play on MSNBC as pious and naïve.)

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[safeinOhio]

1. Poetic Justice.

Biden wins and make Buttigieg his Press Secretary. He then, always calls on the FOX reporters first.

Ok, I'm a dreamer.

[applegrove]

2. No Pete can't be press secretary because even democratic ones have

to skirt around the facts at times. We need him to be chief of staff. Much better for his resume so he can be president.

[DarthDem]

4. I like that suggestion

Chief of staff could possibly suit him well. I do like the press secretary position because he's incredibly well-spoken. Let's win first.

[JI7]

3. UN Anbassador

[DarthDem]

5. Hmmm.

I never considered that. He almost certainly has more foreign policy credentials than Ms. Haley.

Well, let's win first.

[patricia92243]

9. I think an Ambassador to whichever country needs one is a great

idea. It would even be good for his marriage to go to exotic lands while they are both still young and unencumbered.

[True Blue American]

6. If they don't snap Pete up you can bet one

Of the networks will, including Fox News. They lost their star, Shep Smith. I notice bits of his show are showing up on MSNBC.

[beachbumbob]

7. In my 45 yrs of being in and around politics, America has ALWAYS been a center-left country with THE

MAJOR issue of lazy and apathetic democratic voters....Just saying this is how minority rule happens, its given to GOP by default when so democrats just don't give a crap. Hopefully the lesson been learned from 2016.

Pete is a great spokeperson and he shreds foxnews everything he is on.

[patricia92243]

8. "Liberals, even those who had grown tired of his dogged reasonableness"

If any Progressive is tired of his reasonableness, they deserve a kick in the pants!

[NurseJackie]

12. I agree.

[Renew Deal]

10. I wanted to see Buttigieg debate Trump

Because he’s smart as can be and would have destroyed Trump. I heard they might try to get him a job that moves him to NY like UN ambassador. I hope that happens.

[NurseJackie]

11. He will have a place of importance in the Biden administration. Something with high visibility.

[Soxfan58]

13. Our futures so bright!

I've got to wear shades.
Brilliant young Democrats are making it so.

[LittleGirl]

14. Hometown favorite here

I didn’t vote for Pete but I grew up about 2 miles from him. I also worked at the University of Notre Dame for 4 years. South Bend Indiana is a blue spot in burnt red state. He is a son of an immigrant family. Being gay confirms his liberal views and he is a good communicator. I think he will be President someday. My gay cousin in Alabama likes him too. He has a bright future. I think he will be an asset to Democrats for decades!

[Shermann]

15. Pete's been blowing up Fox like a hand grenade

He's using their own tactics against them, mostly the whataboutism tactic.

It's effective, but my guess is he's doing it for effect just to rub their noses in it. It really can be obnoxious and tiresome. It's not the most valid argument, but rather just a way to root around in the slop with the other pigs and not get buried.

Maybe he's trying to raise the intelligence level of the conversation?

[AmericanCanuck]

16. Mayor Pete will make a great SOS

[Jersey Devil]

17. He is such a quick thinker on his feet

that no one else can touch him. Very impressive and would be great in any position in the Biden Administration.