Why "Pete the Communicator" Betrayed Gaza (and the human soul)

The emptiness of the politician as influencer.

Image from Crooked Media/Pod Save America

Pete Buttigieg has already been roundly and rightly criticized for his slippery non-responses to questions about Israel and Palestine from podcast host Jon Favreau. That exchange is easily summarized: When political courage was needed, Buttigieg was a coward.

But Buttigieg the individual isn’t important. Most successful politicians in this country are just as compromised, because our political process attracts amoral strivers the way rotting meat attracts flies. His future doesn’t matter, because any election that Buttigieg could win would also be won by any number of equally malleable figures.

Buttigieg, like Donald Trump, is a 21^st-century hybrid: the politician as influencer. But Trump is an influencer/politician who’s selling something real. Love it or hate it, he has a concrete vision. Buttigieg’s only product is himself. And here’s the kicker: that’s what his champions love about him. Media and political elites want an empty vessel they can fill with their own desires. They want a sales rep.

That’s why they’ve promoted this small-city mayor turned ex-Transportation Secretary as a great “communicator.” Buttigieg’s TV appearances do appeal to some people, so that description has caught on and been repeated over and over. Here are a few randomly-chosen examples:

A Facebook video tells us he’s “the master communicator America needs.”

A psychologist asks, “What makes Pete Buttigieg such an effective communicator?”

A Canadian newspaper shares the four tactics that make Pete Buttigieg one of the finest communicators in America.”

If four tips isn’t enough for you, try “6 things we can all learn about communication from Pete Buttigieg.”

We’re often reminded that Buttigieg speaks multiple languages. (His campaign claimed he spoke eight of them, including Norwegian, Spanish, French, Italian, Maltese, Arabic, and Dari. He probably speaks a smattering of some of them.)

“What makes Pete Buttigieg such an effective communicator?” Beats the hell out of me. When he was asked about the most important moral question of our time, this “master communicator” could only produce gibberish.

Unfair? Judge for yourself:

FAVREAU: More than half of Senate Democrats just voted to oppose the sale of over half a billion dollars’ worth of US bombs and guns to Israel. Would you have voted to oppose sending those weapons?

BUTTIGIEG: I think we we need to insist that if American taxpayer funding is going to weaponry that is going to Israel that that is not going, uh, to things that shock the conscience. And look, we, we, we see images every day that shock the conscience. So much of this is complicated, but what's not complicated is that if a child is starving because of a choice made by a government, uh, that is unconscionable. And, uh, we, I think especially, uh, including voices who care about Israel, who believe in Israel's right to exist, who have stood with Israel in response to the unbelievable cruelty and terrorism of October 7^th, I, I, I think there's there's a reason why so many of those voices are speaking up now too. Uh. because this is not just something that that is on its face and in itself uh a moral catastrophe. It is also a catastrophe for Israel for the long run.

Pop quiz: Would Pete Buttigieg have “voted to oppose sending those weapons,” which is the simple yes-or-no question he was asked? (It’s a trick question. Nobody knows.)

It gets worse. Here’s another yes-or-no question:

FAVREAU: Do you think it's time to recognize a Palestinian state?

BUTTIGIEG: I think that that's uh that's a a profound question that uh arouses a lot of the biggest problems that have happened with uh Israel's survival, Israel's right to survival um in the diplomatic scene and many of the people who have taken that step historically uh have done so for different reasons than what we see happening with European countries. Uh, I think we need to step back and we need to do whatever it takes to ensure that there is a real two-state solution and that no one uh, not even the likes of Netanyahu can veto the international community's commitment to a two-state solution where you have Palestinians and Israelis living with safety, with security, with rights.

Pop quiz #2: Does Pete Buttigieg think it’s time to recognize a Palestinian state? (Right, it’s another trick question.)

Buttigieg has apparently made the same calculation that Kamala Harris did in 2024. He’s decided that big-donor cash matters more for his career than voter preference, or even human conscience. But he’s no fool. He knows it’s a gamble. His career could burn on the human pyre that is Gaza, just like Harris’ did. He’s betting big, placing all his chips on genocide.

No wonder this multilingual “master communicator” became so tongue-tied when asked a couple of simple questions. He must’ve known that, in a moment that called for bravery, he offered only bullshit. (English: bullshit, Italian: stronzate, French: merde de taureau, Norwegian: okse dritt, Arabic: حماقة الثور.)

Does it even need to be said? A “communicator” is a pitchman. But a pitch is not a product and politics is not “content.” To think otherwise is to elevate salesmanship over statesmanship, vaporware over valor. In a moment of moral challenge, the “communicator” has nothing to communicate.

“I think that that's uh that's a a profound question ...”

A chatbot would sound more human.

I may be projecting—in fact, I’m pretty sure I am—but it looked to me as if Buttigieg could feel his own soul dying in real time as he spoke. His eyes seemed lifeless, soulless, reflecting nothing but the spiritual void of the digital universe. The effect was so striking, I watched again.

To paraphrase Nietzsche: I stared into the internet, and the internet stared back.

Buttigieg, like most social media influencers, is evanescent. He’s a phantasm, a flicker, a pattern of light on a million two-dimensional screens. He’s social media incarnate, the internet made flesh.

Sure, that part’s pretty new. But Buttigieg’s politics are old. He’s the kind of politician we’ve seen in this country for a long, long time: a walking, talking vacuum waiting to be filled by the next deep-pocketed sponsor.

No conscience means no restraint, for politicians or for parties. The result? Today—right now—a hundred million screens are showing us the slaughter and starvation in Gaza. Take a look, if you dare. Gaze on it with dread and wonder. It’s the first social-media genocide, the ultimate product placement from our soul-dead political influencers.