A Dose of Rationality, Hope, and Accountability from Pete Buttigieg

Sold-Out Santa Barbara Appearance Offered Insight and Cautious Optimism

Pete Buttigieg at the Arlington Theatre in Santa Barbara, April 22, 2025 | Photo: David Bazemore

Pete Buttigieg brings an invigoratingly rational perspective to the political stage these days.

He first came to our attention during the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, winning Iowa and becoming the first openly gay candidate to win a presidential primary or caucus.

He’s a dad now, with some refreshingly real first-hand experience with the necessity for supporting parental leave.

He also brings some Washington, D.C., gravitas to the table — having served as U.S. Secretary of Transportation under Joe Biden — thus adding some important national experience to his on-the-ground practical role as “Mayor Pete” from South Bend, Indiana.

He’s also got a somewhat fashionable beard now, which he said was still a “work in progress” that his husband is strongly in favor of, his daughter is supportive of but wavering, and his son has so far been silent on.

But does he have what it takes to be our next president? It certainly felt like he was oh-so-gently testing the waters at last week’s UCSB Arts & Lectures (A&L) presentation at the sold-out Arlington Theatre.

Jumping relatively quickly into the heart of his presentation after a few gracious thank-yous to the university, A&L team, and primary sponsor of the evening Sara Miller McCune, Buttigieg said, “I am not here to give a partisan commentary, but I am here to talk about where we are and where we’re headed.”

Starting with the bad news, “We are witnessing an energetic and so far largely successful attempt by figures in our government, not only to take full control of the levers of official policy power in this country, but also to wield unprecedented levels of government power over the pillars of our civil society, including law, science and technology, medicine, the press, and academia. You at UCSB don’t need me to tell you this last part. I am mindful of what it means to be speaking at this university or any university at a moment like this.”

In addition to his downtown appearance, Buttigieg also said he met directly with students earlier in his visit. In addition to the students present at the lecture, there was also a full house at the simulcast of the Arlington lecture just for students on campus at Campbell Hall.

Buttigieg continued, “With the possible exception of wastewater and water systems, I believe that universities are the most important invention of the human species. It’s a concept that predates our country, predates the bulb of Western civilization. It’s a concept that is now in question, the intellectual independence of America’s universities, which is at the very heart of what makes them great, is under enormous pressure. Government leaders appear to be seeking unprecedented levels of political control of the practices of academic administrations, the speech tolerated on campuses, the students who are permitted to participate, and even the substance of what is being researched and taught at our universities.”

He added, “To be clear, government has long been involved in the academy. But this is not a normal form of involvement. This is not just a question of funding of the state university, nor is this about campus safety, which is a wholly legitimate concern for government and society, as are the on campus implications of the real and disturbing rise of anti-Semitism playing out in our country. But this is not that.” he said.

“I’m talking about universities being singled out over politics. This is about freedom. As are so many of the tectonic developments that are filling the headlines today, people being illegally disappeared into foreign prisons based on unproven accusations, U.S. citizens being mistakenly told to deport themselves, security clearances or even security protection being withdrawn from former administration officials who have crossed political lines, targeting of law firms because they have employed or represented critics of current government officials, executive orders singling out supposedly disloyal former administration officials by name for investigation for what is in principle, in some cases, a capital crime, and many other developments on U.S. soil that should show every freedom loving person from the left, the right, and the center.”

Chris Meagher, left, and Pete Buttigieg at the Arlington Theatre in Santa Barbara, April 22, 2025 | Photo: David Bazemore

Throughout the evening, Buttigieg continued to pointedly address his remarks to the left, the right, and the center, adding to that bad news with what he called “the really bad news” that all of these issues are consuming the attentions of both citizens and institutions at a time when American and the world are facing what are “possibly the most profound and fast moving challenges and changes to confront the human species in modern memory, which are challenges that we cannot meet without robust academic culture and focused policy making.”

Specifically he called out the challenges of climate change, modern public health, the role of social media, and the rise of artificial intelligence.

But, “The good news is that we do not have to wander aimlessly into this new era. We can shape it. We are present at the juncture of some of the most important choices that we’ll decide whether the rest of our lifetimes are defined by scarcity or abundance, freedom or authority, isolation or belonging. For everybody who is alive today, we have no risk of living in an unimportant time and when that comes to every prospect of shaping a better future, this is not the time to be arguing about Greenland,” Buttigieg said.

“This is the time for action, for clarity, and for hope.”

Quoting Roberto Unger, Buttigieg said, “Hope is the consequence of action more than its cause.”

“I’m not coming before you with all the answers, but I want to share with you some principles that I believe can shape the actions that we may take in moments later,” said Buttigieg. He urged the audience, “to properly confront this moment and to build up that hope that we will very much be needed in the years ahead.”

Among the biggest themes of his talk was that “this is not a time to turn away or to check out, nor is it a time to stare at the situation transfixed by what we see. You have to look at the enormity of what is happening and make sure that this enormity is the beginning, not the end of the conversation. Make it a source of propulsion, not paralysis.”

He urged us to look at our history and “admit that the histories of other countries are indeed relevant to our lives. The truth is, our American experience is full of various moments when we have dealt with authoritarian tendencies, lawless behavior, political violence, societal interruption, and other colossal problems and other places around the world have dealt with this almost routinely. So instead of being frozen in horror, we need to lean in that much more and do something.”

Buttigieg cautioned, “We need to be ruthlessly prepared to lay aside what we have inherited, if and where it doesn’t work, even as we defend what does work we need to build new ideas to the frame. I hate watching the destruction of our public institutions, the tearing up of promises, the shattering of norms that have helped to hold our society together. But we need to admit that the status quo that our generations have inherited has in many important ways failed us. Good things are being destroyed right now. Useless things are also being destroyed alongside those good things. So the goal cannot be to just ride out this season and then somehow piece it back together. Proto authoritarian populism doesn’t just happen. If our politics, our institutions, and our economy were working well for most Americans, movements like the one now ascendant in Washington wouldn’t have gotten any traction to begin with. We wouldn’t be in this situation. So those who were opposed to the present carnival of chaos and destruction need to have something more to say than stop it in order to win, but even more importantly, in order to deserve to win, and most importantly of all, in order to be prepared to win. Today’s opposition needs to put forward a vision of government in institutions that serve people better, not just better than now, but better than before, which means actually confronting the massive inequalities of power and of wealth that define our time.”

Listing a number of government things that we need to figure out how to make work better (housing, transportation infrastructure, clean energy, education, food, income tax), Buttigieg said, “I am not claiming that there is an easy national consensus to be had anytime soon on our politics and policy. Though, I would be remiss if I did not mention that a lot of the things I believe in enjoy at least two-thirds support in this country, including progressive taxation, a woman’s right to choose, marriage equality, the reality of climate change. There are things that a strong majority of Americans believe that can give us not an escape from the big fights, but a common ground to appeal to as we engage in those sites, the importance of freedom, the dreadful consequences of income inequality, the absolute foundational importance of this being a nation that bows to no King [a statement which garnered huge applause], and things like the magnitude of the challenges like artificial intelligence and the digital colonization of our lives and minds.”

He added, “Pretty much everybody recognizes these things, and there’s a vocabulary to be found in those shared values that can be used to reach across major political and social chasms.”

Before a short Q&A with Chris Meagher (Buttigieg’s former press secretary, the former White House deputy press secretary, and a former reporter for the Santa Barbara Independent, which sadly was not mentioned as part of his illustrious credentials), Buttigieg concluded his prepared remarks with another nod to history:

“The examples of those who have inspired us before should call us to recognize that this moment requires more and not less engagement, that it’s a test of all of us who are now living who may at some point have wondered what it was like to live in this nation’s or any nation’s decisive hours — now we do — and it turns out that being around for one of history’s pivot points is not always a pleasant experience, but it is an incredibly important one, and approaching it will require each of us to win certain battles within ourselves in order for us to be of any use in the battles that are made outside.”