Four years ago, a fresh-faced young Indiana politician asked for a meeting with me.
When we sat down, I realized two things in a hurry.
The first was, even though he was 34 at the time, he looked even younger than that, almost as if he were one of my students. Some of what made him seem younger was his energy. Even sitting down, he seemed to pulse with activity. When he walked, he did so with a distinctive, almost bouncing stride, as if every step were a controlled small leap.
The second thing was that he was smart. Off-the-charts smart. In our conversation, he analyzed the changing American political landscape in ways both scholarly and visionary — in the best sense of both words. It became clear as he spoke that he saw this country, how it was changing and the possibilities, both good and bad, those changes promised for Americans in ways few, if any, other people did.
I left the meeting convinced he was on this way to bigger things.
He was.
He ran for president, made a strong showing, had the savvy to leave the race at the right time and then became perhaps the Democratic Party’s most effective all-purpose surrogate spokesperson during the fall campaign.
Now, he’s been nominated to serve as secretary of transportation in President-elect Joe Biden’s cabinet. If confirmed, he will become the first openly gay cabinet member in American history.
By now, it should be clear the fresh-faced young politician I sat down with four years ago was Pete Buttigieg.
His rise since that afternoon in 2016 has been like a rocket, gaining both speed and altitude at every stage.
All the signs, though, that his was going to be a special story were there in that conversation.
We talked at length about the surprising surges demonstrated by the two outsider presidential candidates that year — Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. He said that the fact that two such candidates could gain mainstream support without having to campaign toward the center was a sign that some fundamental shift in American politics and culture was occurring.
He was right, of course.
Buttigieg realized before just about anyone else that we’re in the midst of a revolution.
Partisan biases blinded many people to this reality. The successes of and setbacks for Trump and Sanders produced either elation or despair, depending upon one’s loyalties. Everything was viewed through a Republican or Democratic lens and evaluated by whether one helped one party’s fortunes or another’s.
Buttigieg saw, though, that something more fundamental was going on. The process was opening up and becoming more democratic — with a small “d” — than it had been.
Americans now would consider as contenders for national leadership people whose candidacies once would have been considered either a longshot or laughable.
Such as a reality TV star with a troubled marital history and a checkered business career.
Or a democratic socialist senator from a small state who wasn’t even officially a member of the party he aspired to lead.
Or an impossibly young gay mayor of a small city in a state stuck in the middle of flyover country.
Part of what Buttigieg saw was that revolutions go where they will and stop where they want to. They also do not honor party loyalties or ideological boundaries.
The fact is that the same national unrest, unease and upheaval that thrust Donald Trump into the White House also created openings and opportunities for other nontraditional candidates. The barriers to entry onto the national stage have been lowered, and they are not likely to go back up again.
This may be for the good.
It also may be for the bad.
Most likely, it will affect this country and its citizens in ways both good and bad.
As all big changes do.
That’s the way history works.
Sometimes, it makes a bombastic reality TV star president of the United States.
Other times, it allows a fresh-faced, impossibly young, impossibly bright leader to rise from nowhere and knock down a wall preventing gay Americans from realizing the American Dream.
Funny thing, history.
John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.
The Link LonkDecember 21, 2020 at 02:00AM
https://www.tribstar.com/opinion/columns/john-krull-a-fresh-face-strides-forth-during-the-revolution/article_827815c4-417a-11eb-8931-c71b3d2f67db.html
John Krull: A fresh face strides forth during the revolution - Terre Haute Tribune Star
https://news.google.com/search?q=fresh&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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