Pete Buttigieg must be surging, Wonkette exposes dirty twitter troll tricks against him

[Celerity]

That's Not What He Said! Mayor Pete / Hillary Clinton Edition

https://www.wonkette.com/thats-not-what-he-said-mayor-pete-hillary-clinton-edition

As we mentioned in our piece about Pete Buttigieg's interview on the Morning Joe Coffee Achievers Show of Shows, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, also did an interview with Esquire magazine, published yesterday. And wouldn't you know it, the magazine's choice of a pull quote has led a whole bunch of people on Twitter to decide that Pete Buttigieg shat all over Hillary Clinton and everyone who supported her, so fuck him, that fucking entitled millennial piece of shit.

Twitter being Twitter, there is not a hell of a lot of nuance in the discussion. And that's why Yr Wonkette, just last week, inaugurated what we're afraid will have to be a regular feature during Campaign 2020: "That's Not What She/He Said," in which we take various chunks of the Dems In Disarray Narrative and give 'em a good hosing-down. So let's take a look at the idea that Pete Buttigieg is a snotty terrible man who trashed Hillary Clinton, shall we? We shall!

First up, one of several tweets accusing Buttigieg of just LOVING the glass ceiling and wanting to keep women in their place. (For those keeping score at home, this is actually the position we hope to debunk):

Link to tweet

Gosh, that DOES look terrible! And if it had been all he'd said, then it would be terrible. Except it's a pull quote that pulls the quote right out of any context. Here's the full question, and Buttigieg's answer, and we think the context matters more than a little:

snip



also here is the Esquire article in full


The Esquire Interview: Mayor Peter Buttigieg

The South Bend, Indiana mayor and Democratic presidential candidate talks socialism, the Green New Deal, "I'm With Her," what Democrats can learn from James Joyce(!), and more.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a26861236/peter-buttigieg-interview/



The more I see and learn about Mayor Pete the more I really really like

[msongs]

1. everything on twitter is true dont ya know? nt

[Talking Tom]

17. Watson didn't lie

And you are not saying what context negates Buttigieg's criticism of Hillary.

[democrank]

2. Mayor Pete is steadily rising

toward the top of my list.

[Celerity]

5. I finally can pronounce his name (it is Maltese) right too! lol

Buddha-jidge

emphasis on the Bu (just like in Buddha) and jidge rhymes with ridge

[marylandblue]

14. Not quite. It's BOOT-edge--edge.

[Celerity]

29. They are both basically the same, we listened to a video

Like 30 times, lolol, of him saying his own name and saw many diffrent attempts to right it out. He seems to soften ever so slightly the t to a d sound and contract the first two syllables together ever so slightly more and the final syllable to my ear sounds ever so slightly more like it rhymes with ridge, but, all that said, BOOT edge edge is also damn close and I can accept that too. Perhaps BOOTedge edge is another way write it. I will use you suggestion as well with people.

Cheers!

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

33. Mine too and lots of others... must be time then to give Mayor Pete the "Bernie treatment"!!

Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[betsuni]

3. Best comment in Wonkette thread:

Last edited Thu Mar 21, 2019, 03:54 AM - Edit history (1)

Someone went to a rally Hillary held in Pennsylvania and said she spoke about all the things candidates are told they need to say: jobs, jobs, jobs, the environment, immigration, the rights of marginalized people, criminal justice reform, health care for all, the dangers of white nationalism, gun control, income inequality -- "you name the issue, she talked about it" -- and the media and others changed that into: "I'm a woman and not Trump and it's my turn so vote for me."

Also, Her Turn and I'm With Her were her supporters, not her campaign slogan, which was Stronger Together.

[Celerity]

4. sounds about par for the course, including many MSM talking heads who now are

terrified of the very monster (the orange bawbag Trump) they fucking helped get elected. Drives me crazy.

[PunkinPi]

28. +1

[murielm99]

6. I have always liked Mayor Pete.

He spoke at our Illinois Chairs' Brunch last summer. I knew about him before that, but he has a lot of charisma that one does not fully experience unless they meet him face to face. Bill Clinton has that same quality.

Mayor Pete saved his city. He might just be the best one to get our country back on track ... er, to make America great again, after the orange plague is gone.

[IndianaDave]

7. Thanks to Celerity for this post, and to Wonkette for the Comments

Having read the entire Esquire interview, it's difficult to imagine that anyone would think that Pete Buttigieg was, in any way, criticizing Hillary. People apparently skim an article, come armed with their preconceptions, and charge ahead with baseless claims. All of our candidates -- and those preparing to run -- deserve better than this. Let's decide together to give everyone a fair hearing. We have a great field of people willing to assume the office of President. I respect them all -- even though I do have a favorite, as you can see. Best wishes to all of them and their innovative ideas.

[allgood33]

8. "I'm with her" was not Hillary's tag. It was our (supporters). STRONGER TOGETHER was HRC's tag.

Everytime and in every place on-line or in person I remind people of that. The media was not our friend here. They know damn well that STRONGER TOGETHER was HRC camaping tag line yet the media also pushed the 'I'm with her" tag to make it look like HRC was all about her self. Guess what? It worked...even the bots on Twitter still puch that lie.

Every chance you get when this comes up correct the record.

[url=https://postimages.org/][img][/img][/url]

[Celerity]

9. he was talking about the buttons, shirts, etc etc that were ubiquitous and using it as a partially

comparative metaphor to fully answer the question.


here is the complete exchange

Esquire:

One of the hallmarks of the campaign so far has been a really rich and detailed debate about policy within the Democratic Party. Is that what's important right now? Or should the Democratic Party simply be organized around the simple premise that Donald Trump is a national emergency and must be defeated above all else and that the policy particulars should take a back seat to that?

Buttigieg:

So actually I don't agree with either of those approaches. The problem with making it all about him is that's what we did in 2016, and when we make it all about him, then there's a lot of voters in places like the industrial midwest, where I live, who say, "Okay, but who's talking about me?" Part of how we lost our way in 2016 was, first of all, it was all about our own nominee. "I'm with her," was literally the button.

Then when we realized who the Republican nominee was going to be, the message became, "Don't vote for him." And we just left a lot of people out because it didn't seem like we were talking about the lived experience of Americans.

For the same reason I don't think that we should do the usual Democratic thing, which is experiencing your competition through competing policy proposals. I think that policy matters, I'm a policy guy. But I think that you need our altitude to be both higher and lower. Higher in the sense that I think we need to talk about values and principles, that's why I'm out there talking about what freedom and democracy and security mean before we get into the depth of any policy idea. And at the same time also be talking in terms that are nearer to the ground, really explaining what we believe in in terms of everyday lived experience and how different under us it will be than under them. And that's how good political narrative works.

snip

Wonkette's take

So the context is not "Why do you hate Hillary Clinton and all the women who supported her," but rather "should Democrats focus on the threat of Donald Trump to the exclusion of all else?" AND ALSO "what should the role of policy arguments be in this election?" It's rather a lot. Notice that, in the discussion of how much to focus on Trump, most of his answer is about why making that the sole focus would be a bad idea. The bit about "I'm with her" is hardly the main point, but there it is, highlighted BY ESQUIRE in both the pull-quote (worse, in the middle of an unrelated question) and the freaking subhed, as if slagging Hillary had been Buttigieg's whole reason for doing the interview.

Watson and others then disingenuously used the out-of-context, chopped 'quote' to falsely slag off Buttigeig via a false meme.




also I’m With Her was from the campaign itself


The Story Behind “I’m With Her”
And three other iconic campaign designs from the Hillary Clinton campaign.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90109190/the-story-behind-im-with-her


At an event in March put on by the New York chapter of the professional design association AIGA and the design team for the Hillary Clinton Campaign, graphic designer Ida Woldemichael opened her speech with a bang. “So you’ve all heard the phrase, ‘I’m With Her,’ yes?” she asked, and then paused. The crowd’s strong applause seemed to suggest the answer was yes. “I wrote that,” she responded simply.

It wasn’t a humble brag—the story that proceeded that statement, about how Woldemichael came up with “I’m With Her,” illustrated the way that setting up a branding system for the campaign allowed for deliberate design decisions to be made even in the most harried of scenarios. “I’m With Her” went from Woldemichael’s sketchbook to a bumper sticker in a matter of days.


[Image: courtesy Hillary for America]

Yes, the phrase “I’m With Her” was invented by a designer one random morning in the campaign’s Brooklyn headquarters. It has since come out of so many mouths, been used in so many articles and hashtags, and been scrawled on so many signs–and is generally so entrenched in our rhetoric about Hillary Clinton now–it was almost a surprise that it had any origin story at all.

Of course it does—all things do. And while the team of designers on the campaign couldn’t have predicted it would take off to quite the degree it did, that lack of clear origin, or campaign ownership, was in some ways deliberate. Woldemichael described the team’s strategy for “un-designing” certain campaign graphics so that supporters could fill them with their own meaning, in turn making them more likely to go viral. “Our goal was not to be cool,” she said at the event. “It was to be accessible and even own-able.”

snip

[Autumn]

18. Watson's trick is to use out-of-context chopped quotes and badly photo shopped pictures .

Just doing what he does. He's the one who blurred faces on a picture to show Bernie had no POC at a rally and got busted by it in his twitter feed and here. A now banned troll was fond of posting his tweets.

Thanks for the post.

[MrsCoffee]

11. +1

I like the guy, but I don’t like his comment in any context. It was about so much more than her and that narrative just bugs.

[OnDoutside]

12. Morning Joe spent the first ten minutes talking about his interview yesterday, all really impressed.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

32. They SHOULD be impressed... VERY impressed!!

Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[Hortensis]

13. On narrative: "you need our altitude to be both higher and lower.

Higher in the sense that I think we need to talk about values and principles, that's why I'm out there talking about what freedom and democracy and security mean before we get into the depth of any policy idea. And at the same time also be talking in terms that are nearer to the ground, really explaining what we believe in in terms of everyday lived experience and how different under us it will be than under them.

Too often even many Democrats can't explain the high of what who we are as a party and what we believe in and fall victim to hostile manipulators on both right and left who rush to fill the holes in their understanding.

Thomas Jefferson on gay rights and the constitution as a living document:

“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

“Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the general progress of the human mind.

Jefferson's principles are intrinsically liberal and natural products of humanism and The Enlightenment. Those strong conservatives for whom they just don't ping have nothing to replace long-established philosophies but knee-jerk resistance to change and yearning for leaders to fill in the blanks for them.

[rogue emissary]

15. This isn't a dirty trick, he just said something extremely

Short sighted.

Then when we realized who the Republican nominee was going to be, the message became, "Don't vote for him." And we just left a lot of people out because it didn't seem like we were talking about the lived experience of Americans.

For someone that voted for Clinton he didn't apparently listen to her speeches. She talked a lot about Americans struggling. She launched her campaign with people giving testimonials about how the ACA saved their lives or how we need to do more.

I haven't been a fan of his since he ran for DNC chair. Anyone that looks at 2016 and their first take is to criticize Clinton. Is planning on losing in 2020. If you aren't talking about foreign money and interference, Republican voter suppression tatics and cyber warfare. You aren't serious about winning the general election. Cause none of those issues are going away. In fact the one thing we won't have is Clinton running 2020. So it serves no purpose to criticize her. Other than trying to endear yourself with her detractors.

[marylandblue]

20. Notice he said "we," including himself, and he isn't wrong.

Democrats (not just Hillary) spent A LOT of time talking about Trump. We still do. Half the posts on DU are "Trump is an effing ______ who is destroying the country." Trump laid this trap for us. He made it about him vs. her, and we stepped right into it. Myself included.

His point here is that you can't win by complaining about how bad Trump is, voter suppression, interference etc. It would be nice if people took those things seriously, but unfortunately, a lot of people don't. A lot of it was reported in 2016, and it was drowned out by the noise of the campaign.

He is trying to say that you need to have express high level principles as well as detailed policy that affects people directly. And you need to make sure the media gets this message, not some other message. Control the narrative. I believe he is right.

[rogue emissary]

21. He's right that we need to express our principals.

Unfortunately, he's mistaken if he thinks Clinton and the DNC didn't champion our values. That's how Clinton separated herself from Donny.

Again I admit I'm not a fan so I'm reading his interview through that bias.

[marylandblue]

22. I don't think he thinks Clinton didn't champion our values.

He saying that the candidate needs to make sure that public gets the right message. Unfortunately, the public heard more about emails in 2016 than any policy. I believe he is very good at messaging and that's why I like him.

[rogue emissary]

23. That's the media failure and not the fault of

the candidate, party or her supporters.

His identifying as a "proud gun owner/ hunter" line during the DNC race is what I don't trustbor like about him.

So I'd respectfully disagree with you that he's good at messaging.

[marylandblue]

24. I partly disagree about the media, messaging and cultivating the media

is part of a campaign. Obama was very good with this, Hillary not so much.

As for Buttigieg saying he's a gun owner/hunter, I don't see why that's a problem. What's his position on gun control?

[rogue emissary]

25. The standard policies they all have expressed.

He hasn't illustrated how he's stood up to the NRA or is willing to go further against preventing gun violence.

Other candidates have a stronger record of speaking out against NRA.

[marylandblue]

26. That's fine with me, but I understand if you prefer someone stronger on that.

We all put different weights on each issue.

[rogue emissary]

27. Indeed, I also get that it's huge to have him in the race

garnering a national platform.

[Talking Tom]

16. Buttigieg criticized Hillary

I clicked the link thinking that the context would negate his criticism. But I found nothing. You made it seem as if Buttigieg didn't criticized Hillary after all.
Hillary was our nominee in 2016.
Buttigieg said part of the problem was our nominee.
No context alters what Buttigieg said.

Can you explain your argument?

[marylandblue]

19. He wasn't complaining about the nominee, he was complaining about the message.

Other than the campaign buttons (which were all over the place), he didn't go into any detail about why that became message, so I don't think he is blaming her for being a bad nominee. Rather, he wants to explain what his own messaging should look like. That's my take away.

I don't think he meant to say "Hillary is bad." But I do think he is better at message control than most candidates. But if I'm wrong and his message ends up being, "Democrats suck," he'll lose that demographic to Sanders and that's the end of him.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

31. Ding! Ding! Ding!... We hava winner!!!

Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

30. Mayor Pete was SO 100% right in that Esquire interview... how can people not see this?

It was all about the part of the MESSAGE that left PEOPLE/VOTERS being harmed out of the conversion.


Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!