The death penalty has been one of many examples where racial discrimination has played out. You can see it in the simple fact that someone convicted of the same crime is more likely to face the death penalty if they are black.
— Pete Buttigieg
You know, I do believe that China is emerging as a competitor, not just a competitor but, in many ways, an adversary. And, you know, the Chinese model is also being held up globally as an alternative power model, and I very much believe in our model versus theirs.
By the way, conversely, one thing I've learned in my career, beginning when I ran for mayor, is that a lot of older voters are among the most excited about a younger candidate. So, you know, I think somebody of any age can deliver a compelling message.
The force that has come closest across American history to actually ending America was white supremacy. That was the Civil War.
In my generation, thankfully, as somebody who served in the Afghanistan War, would have served in the Iraq War, if called to do so - was also strongly against the Iraq War, from the beginning - I'm so thankful that we live in a moment that we can honor the troops separately from policy.
The most moving responses I got to my coming out in the first place was people, like teenagers, letting me know that it made their lives easier in some way.
I'm not sure anything makes you an outright good person or bad person - that we're all capable of doing good or bad things. And if you want to know how much good you can do, and how much hurt you can do, just ask somebody you love.
If I'm plowing the snow and filling in potholes, then I'm a good mayor, and if we fail to do that, I'm not. And it's got almost nothing to do with whether, when I come home, it's to a husband or to a wife.
Tunisians are very friendly.
I do think, actually, one thing I noticed with Silicon Valley post-Trump is it kind of made them more politically aware, more aware that, like, business and philanthropy alone isn't going to make the world a better place.
We need to consider a financial transactions tax. And we need to ask whether the top marginal tax rates are really appropriate, given that the effective tax rates paid by the wealthy are often actually lower than those paid by the rest of us.
A lot of these so-called left positions are actually centrist by the standards of the American people, just not by members of the American Congress.
If Medicare today includes Medicare supplemental, why wouldn't Medicare for all include a Medicare supplement for all who want it?
In local government, it's very clear to your customers - your citizens - whether or not you're delivering. Either that pothole gets filled in, or it doesn't. The results are very much on display, and that creates a very healthy pressure to innovate.
I think that policy matters. I'm a policy guy.
I believe in capitalism as long as there's a strong rule of law around it.
As we see dislocation and disruption in certain parts of the country, from rural areas to my home in the industrial Midwest, and in the economy, this leads to a kind of disorientation and loss of community and identity. That void can be filled through constructive and positive things, like community involvement or family.
We need to intentionally invest in health, in home ownership, in entrepreneurship, in access to democracy, in economic empowerment. If we don't do these things, we shouldn't be surprised that racial inequality persists because inequalities compound.
To me, what success looks like is not to believe that Afghanistan can become a unified, Western-style democracy with a developed-country economy just yet. I think success in the American interest is some level of assurance that it's not going to be a place that again leads to an attack on the American homeland.
When you become a citizen, you are an American and questioning somebody's Americanness because they disagree with you - is about one of the most un-American things I can think of.
I think of myself as a democratic capitalist, although I think the word 'socialism' loses its meaning every time that it is used to describe literally any policy left of far right by the current Republicans.
So, I've learned - as a young Democrat, I've learned to think cautiously before offering advice to Nancy Pelosi.
Because reading is a way of putting yourself in someone else's experience, especially reading fiction.
My marriage to Chasten has made me a better man.
I don't have to go on a tour to find out what's happening in middle America. I just go to Target.
Like public surface in general, sewers are unbelievably important. They're so important that we make sure they work basically all of the time. Which is why you never think of them - that's kind of the point.
I think for those of us who think that our morality is something that needs to be in touch with our religious faith personally, then it's really important to explain that no one party has a monopoly on faith.
I was in high school when Columbine happened.
There's a lot to be said for expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit.
As a consultant at McKinsey, I learned the value of data and the ability to shape that information into an answer.
A Midwestern municipal government isn't the first thing that leaps to mind when you think of innovation, but it ought to be.
As a mayor, my instinct is to really think about how to get something done and not to make the promise unless you have some view of the pathway. You don't have to have it all figured out, but you have to have a pathway there.
In many ways, Trump appeals to people's smallness, their fears, whatever part of them wants to look backward.
I think people are just puzzled by why people where I'm from make the political choices sometimes that they do.
If you're a white candidate, it is twice as important for you to be talking about racial inequity and not just describing the problem - which is fashionable in politics - but actually talking about what we're going to do about it and describing the outcomes we're trying to solve for.
I met my husband through an app that talks to social-networking sites, and that's how we were sort of suggested to each other, and it turned out to be a great match.
One of the reasons we set up this country, one of the things we celebrate in freedom and democracy of the United States is you can criticize your president. You can criticize the ways in which the country falls short of its values.
When I was deployed, I could feel a full spectrum of American power keeping me safe. And yes, that was the armor on my vehicle; yes, it was the armor on my body; but it was also the armor of some level of American moral authority.
By the way, if you ever watch Prince Harry on a panel or giving a talk, you can tell that as royals go, he's comparatively normal, and I think that's largely because he had a workplace experience with people with radically different social backgrounds.
One respect in which I'm very much my father's son is how I feel about Joyce. 'Ulysses' is very much about daily life, when you get into this other guy's life and you learn about the things he cares about, and why he cares about them. And then, very indirectly, very subtly, you learn why politics has impacted his life, too.
The challenge in confronting Trump is that there are certain things that he does that that you have to respond to, just morally. When he lies, you've got to correct the lie, which will keep you busy because he does it so often. When he does something wrong, you've got to point to it.
The background of a mayor of a city of any size is a background of somebody who on one hand is an executive and on the other hand is very close to the ground.
You can't just let companies self-regulate, and I've gotta think they get that, too.
I don't have a problem with enhanced border security, perhaps to include fencing. I think the mistake is believing that border security is as simple as just putting up a wall from sea to shining sea.
I don't know how it plays in San Francisco. But I can tell you I came out, during a reelection campaign, in Indiana, while Mike Pence was the governor. And I wound up winning reelection by 80 percent.
I think there's a lot to be said for changing the balance of what we tax: wealth versus work.
Businesses always have competitors nipping at their heels. Historically, cities have not viewed themselves as subject to that same type of competition. But that's wrong.
I think a lot about intergenerational justice. Short-term versus long-term helps to explain a lot of the policy disagreements that happen between the parties, and I would argue that in most ways, we are the party with more long-term thinking.
To me, what's really important about the Green New Deal isn't, like, one of the elements of it: it's the concept. It's the concept that we have a national emergency commensurate with a depression or a war. And then the second part of it, the concept that, in rising to meet that challenge, there's a ton of economic opportunity.
My voting rights agenda is not that different from what you'd see in H.R. 1.
