Would love to read a series going position-by-position through the cabinet to talk about what levers for progress they can actually pull. Between DOT's scope, energy's arms oversight, and interior's NA affairs I think there's a lot of misunderstanding of what each position could do. And you've been a rare font of positivity about the future lately.
Cannot understand the intensity of the Mayor Pete hate from young people ( I went to a rally for him and it was funny how rule following -- no line cutting -- and pretty normie the crowd was, while my husband, who went with me because it was Valentine's Day was a little worried about how it impacted his reputation). I wish him luck and hope somehow we get better bike lanes since we're not likely to get significantly better mass transit and I hate driving a car in traffic.
Nominally related but people might be interested - fascinating episode of 99% Invisible called “Missing the Bus” on how just revitalizing the city bus could “do away with traffic jams, make cities more equitable, and help us solve climate change”. (https://castbox.fm/vd/227493439)
Good post! Thanks for linking to my article about self-driving cars.
In the arena of self-driving cars, the key agency is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which has taken a strongly hands-off approach under Trump. A few things a Biden NHTSA might do are (1) revise the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards to revise provisions that currently reply every car to have a steering wheel, mirrors, airbags, etc. that might not make sense for driverless (and possibly passengerless) cars. (2) beef up regulation of driver-assistance systems like Tesla's Autopilot to require driver monitoring or other safety capabilities. (3) Require more reporting of testing activities and accident rates for self-driving cars. Eventually they'll probably want to draft new safety standards for driverless cars but right now it's not clear what those rules might look like and I doubt they'll be finished in Biden's first term.
I really appreciate no. 13 and 14. I’m a huge Pete fan and wildly supported his campaign while it was active. I also have many friends in the Bernie/Warren camps that disappointed me by how unreasonably hostile they were to my guy. (Like no problem if he’s not your first choice but please lay off the rat emoji. It’s too much!) I think you’re right about what he represents to them. And no, it’s not obvious to everyone -at least not to me- but that’s why I’m more than happy to pay to read your work! Thanks so much for this emergency post. I’m ridiculously excited about the announcement.
I know we're hesitant to reach for social justice explanations here, but I do think Pete being gay (at a time when being a gay white man, like being Jewish, is taken online to be safer than it really is) has something to do with all of the hate he gets. Certainly some of the things people say about him—for instance, that he makes up/exaggerates his stories of youthful self-hatred in order to manipulate people, or that they show some lack of character or gumption—they would not say about racial minorities, and rightly so. Am I reaching?
I hope this is obvious to everyone, but it just can’t be stressed heavily enough that social media performative Pete-hatred does not actually mean that the left hates Pete. Twitter is not the real world. When you walk around on the street and have (outside, socially distant) dinner with your friends, the conversations around politics bear almost no resemblance to the conversations around politics on twitter and reddit. Those forums are a good place to try out snarky comments and engage in vigorous internet debate with strangers, but aren't at all a reliable indicator of the political winds.
The mayor Pete hate seems to spring out of a broader anti capitalist sentiment from the online left that I just really struggle to understand. Are all these people in academic corridors where its sort of in vogue to demonize professional success in the private sector? I don’t mean to sound overly libertarian about the matter - but I work with ex consulting folks and guess what, they are really freaking smart. Seems like we should embrace smart people in government!
This also seems like a good sign of a real transportation/infrastructure focus from the Biden admin writ large. Pete is an ambitious guy and wants to take a job where he can build his profile positively. Biden seems to legitimately want to help him do that.
It seems like if they didn't have big ideas in this space that they legitimately thought could still happen with a Republican Senate Buttigieg would not be landing there.
Is there a good piece to read about Cuomo and Byford? Getting people from Europe to help with our transportation seems like a good idea so curious to see when we've tried it before.
***his existence threatens the young socialist left’s belief that the future belongs to them...the prospect of a charismatic, talented, ambitious normie Democrat who’s not going away any time soon is terrifying.***
I was kinda hoping "rapier-sharp, bad-ass general election Pete" would serve to mitigate some of the hard left's antipathy. I don't know how many votes he moved into Biden's camp, but Buttigieg really was brutal AF to sundry Republicans in various TV mini-debates. Made me even a bigger fan.
Indiana certainly does have mass transit! South Shore line that gets you from South Bend to Chicago is just like the Metro-North New Haven line and Pete obviously cared about it as mayor. He wanted to re-locate the train station to downtown, which seems like it will happen in a year or two.
As a former resident of SB I can say that it will improve the city's quality of life *enormously* if you don't have to take a cab or a slow bus to the airport to catch a train to Chicago. He also improved the bus system & his derelict housing demolition program had its problems but was caricatured in the national media.
Would love to read a series going position-by-position through the cabinet to talk about what levers for progress they can actually pull. Between DOT's scope, energy's arms oversight, and interior's NA affairs I think there's a lot of misunderstanding of what each position could do. And you've been a rare font of positivity about the future lately.
Cannot understand the intensity of the Mayor Pete hate from young people ( I went to a rally for him and it was funny how rule following -- no line cutting -- and pretty normie the crowd was, while my husband, who went with me because it was Valentine's Day was a little worried about how it impacted his reputation). I wish him luck and hope somehow we get better bike lanes since we're not likely to get significantly better mass transit and I hate driving a car in traffic.
This post alone was worth the subscription. Thanks!
Nominally related but people might be interested - fascinating episode of 99% Invisible called “Missing the Bus” on how just revitalizing the city bus could “do away with traffic jams, make cities more equitable, and help us solve climate change”. (https://castbox.fm/vd/227493439)
Good post! Thanks for linking to my article about self-driving cars.
In the arena of self-driving cars, the key agency is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which has taken a strongly hands-off approach under Trump. A few things a Biden NHTSA might do are (1) revise the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards to revise provisions that currently reply every car to have a steering wheel, mirrors, airbags, etc. that might not make sense for driverless (and possibly passengerless) cars. (2) beef up regulation of driver-assistance systems like Tesla's Autopilot to require driver monitoring or other safety capabilities. (3) Require more reporting of testing activities and accident rates for self-driving cars. Eventually they'll probably want to draft new safety standards for driverless cars but right now it's not clear what those rules might look like and I doubt they'll be finished in Biden's first term.
I really appreciate no. 13 and 14. I’m a huge Pete fan and wildly supported his campaign while it was active. I also have many friends in the Bernie/Warren camps that disappointed me by how unreasonably hostile they were to my guy. (Like no problem if he’s not your first choice but please lay off the rat emoji. It’s too much!) I think you’re right about what he represents to them. And no, it’s not obvious to everyone -at least not to me- but that’s why I’m more than happy to pay to read your work! Thanks so much for this emergency post. I’m ridiculously excited about the announcement.
I know we're hesitant to reach for social justice explanations here, but I do think Pete being gay (at a time when being a gay white man, like being Jewish, is taken online to be safer than it really is) has something to do with all of the hate he gets. Certainly some of the things people say about him—for instance, that he makes up/exaggerates his stories of youthful self-hatred in order to manipulate people, or that they show some lack of character or gumption—they would not say about racial minorities, and rightly so. Am I reaching?
I hope this is obvious to everyone, but it just can’t be stressed heavily enough that social media performative Pete-hatred does not actually mean that the left hates Pete. Twitter is not the real world. When you walk around on the street and have (outside, socially distant) dinner with your friends, the conversations around politics bear almost no resemblance to the conversations around politics on twitter and reddit. Those forums are a good place to try out snarky comments and engage in vigorous internet debate with strangers, but aren't at all a reliable indicator of the political winds.
The mayor Pete hate seems to spring out of a broader anti capitalist sentiment from the online left that I just really struggle to understand. Are all these people in academic corridors where its sort of in vogue to demonize professional success in the private sector? I don’t mean to sound overly libertarian about the matter - but I work with ex consulting folks and guess what, they are really freaking smart. Seems like we should embrace smart people in government!
This kind of post is better than 75% of your longer pieces (which are quite good), so I'd encourage you to keep doing this
This also seems like a good sign of a real transportation/infrastructure focus from the Biden admin writ large. Pete is an ambitious guy and wants to take a job where he can build his profile positively. Biden seems to legitimately want to help him do that.
It seems like if they didn't have big ideas in this space that they legitimately thought could still happen with a Republican Senate Buttigieg would not be landing there.
Is there a good piece to read about Cuomo and Byford? Getting people from Europe to help with our transportation seems like a good idea so curious to see when we've tried it before.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-deciding-decade-with-pete-buttigieg/id1525423535?i=1000502554240
Interesting convo between Hillary and Pete where they get a bit in the weeds on federal transportation policy
“If they can dig under fucking Rome then it should be possible to handle New York.” was my yearbook quote.
***his existence threatens the young socialist left’s belief that the future belongs to them...the prospect of a charismatic, talented, ambitious normie Democrat who’s not going away any time soon is terrifying.***
I was kinda hoping "rapier-sharp, bad-ass general election Pete" would serve to mitigate some of the hard left's antipathy. I don't know how many votes he moved into Biden's camp, but Buttigieg really was brutal AF to sundry Republicans in various TV mini-debates. Made me even a bigger fan.
Indiana certainly does have mass transit! South Shore line that gets you from South Bend to Chicago is just like the Metro-North New Haven line and Pete obviously cared about it as mayor. He wanted to re-locate the train station to downtown, which seems like it will happen in a year or two.
As a former resident of SB I can say that it will improve the city's quality of life *enormously* if you don't have to take a cab or a slow bus to the airport to catch a train to Chicago. He also improved the bus system & his derelict housing demolition program had its problems but was caricatured in the national media.