This is actually pretty apt:
“We had the belief that in the face of exhaustion and cynicism and division, in spite of every trampled norm and every poisonous tweak,” [Mayor Pete] said, “that a rising majority of Americans was hungry for action and ready for new answers.”
What action? What answers? What is this? The whole timbre and cadence of his speech seemed to be modeled after the rhetoric of Barack Obama. But it lacked all the reassuring notes of specificity that seemed to prove Obama was an actual human being, inhabiting a corporeal body in the same space-time continuum that I inhabit.
Buttigieg’s speech, on the other hand, resembled a kind of mad-lib speech in which none of the blanks had been filled. Obama was promising not just “action” but to turn back the rising sea levels. How did Pete Buttigieg manage to beat Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, and a dozen other people with more charm (such as Andrew Yang) with this utter pablum?
I’m not saying for sure that Pete Buttigieg is a robot or a phenomenon of massive psychotic projection. I can’t prove that. All I can say is that when he came out on stage in Iowa, I felt like we were undergoing a coup.
To be fair, I'm not sure Mayor Pete's pablum is worse than "Change we can believe in."
UPDATE: The Onion nailed this last April! (Thanks to Ruchira Paul for the pointer.)



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