BEFORE: We're getting very close to the end, I should be able to wrap up the Summer Rock & Doc Block this weekend, just TWO films left after today's. It's been a wild ride, and we've learned a lot about everything from the Rat Pack to the stars of PBS, soul singers and drummers and chefs and scuba divers. But just like the recent heat wave, it's got to end at some point, and the way the linking worked out, I'm closing things out with two politicians and a comedian. There's a joke in there somewhere...like in post-Trump America, I'm not even sure I know what the difference is between them any more - like one lies and tells stories in front of a crowd, and the other is a comedian.
Al Sharpton carries over from "Summer of Soul".
THE PLOT: An inside look at Pete Buttigieg's campaign to run for President of the United States.
AFTER: This is the LAST film in my chain this year that screened at DocFest, which took place in October, partially at the theater where I work part-time. I remember a lot of people coming out of the screening of "Mayor Pete" saying good things about the film - and I didn't know there were so many Buttigieg fans in NYC, even a full year after he lost in the 2020 election. Look, that wasn't that long ago, 2 years, so why does it feel like a lifetime ago? So many things happened between then and now, the January 6 insurrection, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the second impeachment of Trump, the cyberninjas, the COVID vaccines, monkeypox, the death of Meat Loaf - look, it's been a lot to handle, OK? I don't blame anybody who wants to just turn the news off and find better things to do with their time, like maybe curl up in a ball and rock back and forth while moaning. If it makes you feel better, go ahead, I won't judge.
But I feel like I never really got to KNOW all of the candidates that ran in 2020, and there were a TON of them. Sure, we remember Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, but who remembers Seth Moulton? Jay Inslee? Tulsi Gabbard? Deval Patrick? Michael Bennet? Tom Steyer? Wayne Messam? And wait, Michael Bloomberg ran as a DEMOCRAT? That's some bullshit right there - he was a Republican when he was the mayor of NYC for two terms, then he somehow got around the law regarding term limits by running again as an independent, which now sounds nuts - he didn't become a different person just by leaving the Republican party, he was the SAME GUY and somehow got a third term when the limit was TWO. Mighty convenient that he was able to change the law about term limits in time for it to apply to HIMSELF. If you think Trump had a problem leaving the Presidency, think how much worse that could have been, President Bloomberg would have just changed the law to allow himself to be President again.
Pete Buttigieg is kind of right on that cusp of familiarity for me, I remember him running, he won two primaries and was a first place contender in the polls for about a week? Eventually Biden entered the race and started to pick up some momentum, and then everybody sort of came to the conclusion that he had the best chance to beat Trump - everybody except Bernie Sanders, that is. But Sanders had 26% of the Democratic support, while Buttigieg had 2.5%, so that was that. BUT, Spoiler Alert, after the election, Biden offered Pete Buttigieg a position in his cabinet, as Secretary of Transportation, so that's a pretty good bump up from Mayor of South Bend, Indiana. Isn't that the way life works sometimes, we try to get one job, but we don't get it, so we end up working a different job? And then after a while, it feels like maybe that's the way things were meant to be?
Buttigieg was well-spoken, and ticked off a number of boxes as the first openly gay person to seek the U.S. Presidency, and for a while there, it looked like he had a shot at becoming our second gay President. (There, I said it, you're not fooling anyone, James K. Polk...). It probably helped that Buttigieg was a veteran, was well-spoken and was in a committed relationship, and could pass as straight if he chose to, which he didn't. Some Midwesterners probably think all gay men are drag queens, which sure, some are, but not all of them. So we're still kind of waiting for the first flamboyantly gay person to run for President, which might take a bit longer. But it says a lot about the citizens of South Bend that they kept electing Buttigieg, they were able to overcome any homophobia and judge someone on their deeds and intents, not by who they sleep next to.
Buttigieg is also the first openly gay Cabinet Secretary, the youngest member of the Biden cabinet, and the youngest person to ever serve as Secretary of Transportation. That's a win all around. What we may never know, however, is whether the experience he had as the mayor of South Bend, and any successes he had there, would have transferred over to the national level, had he been elected President. Would it make sense to run America like a small town? I'm not so sure, just because something works on the local level, it doesn't mean that's going to work when you blow it up on a grand scale. Something tells me the problems in the United States are just too complex for that, especially when you've got 100 different senators all vying for their states to get a bigger piece of the federal pie, and thus legislative gridlock seems inevitable. Two parties, sure, but the majority margins are so razor-thin, just look at how long Joe Manchin was able to slow down the bill about climate change. If the Democrats had just ONE more senator, it wouldn't even be an issue, bills and laws would pass much quicker, and they wouldn't need to make so many concessions to West Virginia.
The film follows Buttigieg from his decision to run for President through several of the primaries and debates, right up until he withdrew from the race. He proved several times to be quick on his feet and able to answer complex questions quickly - the only one shown here that seemed to stump him was one regarding whether he'd prefer to run against Donald Trump or Mike Pence, and he sort of dodged it by saying, "Are those my only two choices?" Obviously Buttigieg comes from the same state as Pence, and he was mayor of South Bend when Pence was Governor of Indiana, and Pence is notoriously uber-religious and anti-gay, so I don't think there's much respect there, especially since we're SUPPOSED to have a separation of church and state in this country, but all this "love the sinner, hate the sin" stuff keeps creeping in to our laws. And now we're going through the same B.S. with abortion, with conservatives allowing their religion to influence their politics, which is anti-Constitutional right down to the core.
The film does not mention that Buttigieg acted as a stand-in for Pence when vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris was preparing to debate Pence, but Mayor Pete knew so much about Pence, I'm sure his insight was extremely helpful.
Anyway, I think this is a very enlightening documentary - long after those other 2020 Democratic candidates have been forgotten, people are still talking about Mayor Pete. Maybe the cabinet position is just a stepping stone, who knows? He and Chasten make an adorable couple, I wish them the best - who can say what the 2024 election will bring? A lot can happen in two years, but we're approaching the midterm elections and nobody even knows what's going to happen THIS November, let alone November 2024. The other possibility here, though, is that I waited too long to watch this one, and perhaps it's no longer relevant. Time will tell, I guess.
Ah, if only I had started my documentary chain at this end, and flipped it all around, then I could have programmed this film in June, which is Pride Month. Mea culpa - but the chain works the way it wants to work.
Also starring Pete Buttigieg, Chasten Buttigieg, Mike Schmuhl, Lis Smith,
with archive footage of David Axelrod, Joe Biden (last seen in "We Feed People"), Donald Trump (ditto), Wolf Blitzer (last seen in "Clear History"), Michael Bloomberg (last seen in "Koch"), Cory Booker (last seen in "John Lewis: Good Trouble"), Beto O'Rourke (ditto), Mika Brzezkinski (last seen in "Irresistible"), Erin Burnett, Stephen Colbert (last seen in "Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed"), Anderson Cooper (last seen in "Roadrunner: A Film about Anthony Bourdain"), Trevor Noah (ditto), Ellen DeGeneres (last seen in "Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me"), Bill Maher (ditto), Kamala Harris, Van Jones (last seen in "The Accidental President"), Rachel Maddow (ditto), Bernie Sanders (ditto), Katty Kay, Amy Klobuchar, Chris Matthews (last seen in "Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump"), Jake Tapper (ditto), Lawrence O'Donnell (last seen in "The One and Only Dick Gregory"), Chris Wallace (last seen in "The Kid Stays in the Picture"), Elizabeth Warren (last seen in "Bad Reputation"), Andrew Yang,
RATING: 5 out of 10 ice cream date nights
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