"America's Heartland"

It was a subtweet to an earlier tweet by the GOP. I love how Pete has now responded to the coastals freaking out on Twitter with a video of a voter asking him about bullying. 🤭

[quote]Heartland is an American political term referring to U.S. states that "don't touch an ocean," whether the Atlantic or Pacific, or to the Midwestern United States. The phrase not only refers to a tangible region but is also a cultural term connoting many ideas and values, such as hard work, rustic small town communities, rural heritage, simplicity, and honesty. Citizens of the Heartland—referred to as simply "Heartlanders"—are often seen as Blue collar.

They're trying to make it into a race thing - of course - but take a look at Obama’s official White House biography...

[quote]Barack Obama served as the 44th President of the United States. His story is the American story — values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, hard work and education as the means of getting ahead, and the conviction that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others.

Ahem.

Angry black lady on twitter.

"What is the American Heartland, pray tell"

This phrase is used in Obama's official White House biography, you retarded bitch.

r3 Jinx!

[quote]US Census Bureau said 12 states such as North Dakota, South Dakota, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio are the Mid-West. These are typically associated with "Small Heartland". Large Heartland means "Small Heartland" plus Montana, Kentucky, Idaho, Colorado, Oklahoma, Nevada, West Virginia, Wyoming, Utah and Southern States Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas.

r3 No black people in any of these states, nope. If this primary has taught me anything, it's that all black people in the US live either in South Bend or in South Carolina, but absolutely nowhere else. 😆

Since when are Harvard and Oxford in America’s Heartland?

The point of his statement is to bash the Washington swamp.

I saw this tweet earlier then came back to Twitter, read it without even a second thought. Then I come back to Twitter later and it's trending and people are shitting themselves out of outrage: Pete hates Queens, New York. All of it is hilarious, all of it is pathetic - it's all hilariously pathetic.

People in Washington are all from somewhere else too.

I'm sick of any politician using possible the lazy trope that somehow those who do not live on "the heartland" cannot be good, upstanding, honest folk. Pete needs to drop this. I love Pete though

This bitch!

The point was to bash this tweet by the GOP. They're behaving as if they're the champions of the Midwest by singing that NAFTA with a facelift.

[quote]Today, @realDonaldTrump will sign the historic USMCA into law. Here’s how this modernized trade deal will help the American heartland, according to @ChuckGrassley

r6 Erm... he grew up in Indiana and returned there as an adult. Not all people study where they grew up, that much should be obvious to anyone...

Of course people are upset with him over this. They're upset with him over everything. Pete could save a puppy from a burning building and people would be outraged at him for not putting the fire out.

Lulz

r10 Yeah, it's corny, but he'd never used it before today. It was a response to the tweet at r12. He usually says "the industrial Midwest" and has actually said in the past that he prefers the term "Rust Belt" and that Midwesterners should reclaim that one even though it's considered a derogatory term.

When are people ever happy with Pete? He represents a middle of the road approach that sadly no longer exists. Most of the hate he faces comes from the fact that he doesn't side with one of the extremes, he has centrist ideas and that scares people. The modern American is terrified when confronted with a philosophy that believes in grey, not just black and white.

r13, Oh honey, we know if that puppy is black, he ain't going in that burning building.

If you ignore the anti-Pete troll it will stop posting.

Pete is right.

Pete is right.

R17 Thank you for proving my point: no matter what Pete does, people will mindlessly hate him without cause.

r16 That "middle of the road approach" is what delivered the blue wave to us in 2018. But sure, it doesn't work anymore. 🙄

Coastal elites do not even bother to hide their contempt for midwesterners. They will never fucking learn I swear.

If this represents a middle of the road approach, then I shudder to think what the opposite of that looks like...

R22 My point was that it does work, but that the modern American is afraid of it because our current society shudders at the idea of a thought process that doesn't deal in extremes.

R24 The opposites on both sides are Bernie and Trump.

Racist? Because it's not a coastal urban area? Oh, okay.

In Obama’s bio he simply referred to midwestern heartland values. Period. In doing so he — wisely — didn’t bash the rest of the country or make a qualitative judgment about those values. That is the fundamental and critical difference between the appropriate use of the word heartland by Obama and ineptly by Mayo Pete. Pete foolishly set this up as a scenario involving “us versus them,” which was clumsy, tone-deaf, and unnecessary. Newsflash for Petey: he’s running to be President of the United States — including the people he just dissed — not President of the Midwest.

Pete’s whiff of smugness— my values are better than yours — is unappealing, and why I would prefer he not be the nominee.

R27 Nobody really thinks it's racist, the people calling it that are just looking for a reason to bash him. Tale as old as time.

Little Homosexual Yokel.

R28 is a Warren supporter. Your girls sucks.

There is literally nothing in this tweet that warrants the kind of hysterical foaming-at-the mouth responses it's getting. Like nothing at all.

The Iowa caucus is 5 days away - the foundational premise of his entire campaign is that he was the Mayor of a once-dying industrial midwestern city, exactly the kind of community that is alienated from and overlooked by the Washington partisan swamp. He wants to bring that perspective into Washington - that's it, that is the tweet.

People claiming otherwise - saying he's bashing "the coasts", "dog-whistling", etc. - are either asshole self-righteous ideologues or fucking stupid as hell.

R28 gets it.

haters gotta hate

Pete takes everything on the chin like a champ. I don't think for a second that Warren would handle the shit Pete gets with half as much dignity. Or Bernie, for that matter. Let alone Biden, who would fall apart at the seams.

Wrong, R31 — not supporting Warren. Try again.

Ava Duvernay wants an answer

"Respectfully, where is the American Heartland located exactly in your mind as you write this tweet? Does it include Compton and other places like it? Because us folks from those places would like a president shaped by our vision too. Serious question. Would love an answer

Pete’s frightening the bloated Washington elites. I love Pete! ❤️

I want Pete to stick it out and try and become the dem nominee but at this point I fear for his safety. People hate him to the extreme that I worry about an assassination.

Easiest answer Ava Duvernay: the heartland is anywhere not on Wall Street, Mar-a-Lago, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood.

R37 that Tweet was deleted.

It honestly feels like I have to be living in the god damn twilight zone that people are actually throwing a fit over this .tweet? Like for real are you fucking kidding me? The stink of desperation and performative outrage is sickening. Losers.

Oh it’s the horsewhisperer that’s stirring up the shit. He’s a Warren supporter. Fuck him.

Praising the prairie flatlands and pledging allegiance to fictional Sky Santas is par for the course for any savvy politician hoping to make headway into federal politics.

This coastal approves!

r37 Why the fuck would anyone want to live by Compton values? I'm assuming that bitch thinks every black person lives in a Compton style environment.

Two words:

Go Petey!

If any other candidate - like fucking Amy Klobuchar - tweeted this kind of generic (it’s been done 1000 times before in American politics) platitude about the “heartland” - no one would bat an eye but Pete is the only one who gets so much grief and outright, over the top contempt.

And we ALL know why it’s so over-the-too and exaggerated. I wish some of these people would just come out and say it. Pull the masks back.

(Hint: the answer rhymes with shmay)

OP, your attempt at creating drama with this "nothingburger" is particularly egregious and feeble.

You're like that big, fat girl we all knew in Jr. High -- trying to create drama by whispering things like "X said so-and-so about Y" -- to deflect away from how fat you are and how much you suck.

R7 proves there’s an overlap between Pete supporters and Trumpkins

R45 = typical racist Buttigeiger

I find Pete kinda smug myself, but the OTT homophobia slung at him is pushing me towards his camp.

That's all it is. Straight up fag hating. Everything he does attracts this OTT hysteria from the woke Twitter crowd. They can go fuck themselves, the goddamned bigots.

This is something that happened to Tim Ryan as well, the candidate who was most similar to Pete, though way more moderate. The district he won in Ohio is 50% POC, yet every time he talked about "blue-collar workers," the coastals on Twitter tried to paint him as a dog-whistling racist. I truly don't get it. It's not like only white people can be blue-collar workers? 😩

Boring, banal comment. How about electing someone who knows what they are doing. In fact a highly effective, partisan liberal Washington politician is exactly what is needed. Sort of a left wing Mitch McConnell. Pity there is none in the race although if Joe was a thousand years younger he would qualify.

[quote]Sort of a left wing Mitch McConnell.

Uh-huh. That's the thing that'll win those crucial senate seats in November and not lead to a crushing red wave in 2022. For sure. You go ahead and fight, dear. Some of us prefer to get previous allies on board and not lose abortion, marriage equality, workers rights... in the process.

[quote]Pity there is none in the race although if Joe was a thousand years younger he would qualify.

Biden is literally the exact opposite of the partisan fighter you're describing, so you're all over the place with your comment.

Ack. Buttigieg is an asshole. I was also born and raised in Indiana and I can assure you all that very little of what goes on there should be exported to the rest of the country. It's a backward place, filled with small and beligerent people afraid of the world outside it. They elected Mike Pence. Repeatedly. They elected Dan Coats. They elected Mike Braun, fer chrissakes.

Pete, take your "Heartland"and shove it up your ass.

Did people ever stop to think that maybe Pete didn't fucking write the tweet because... I don't know... he's a presidential candidate? You think Warren writes her tweets? Or Biden, for the matter? No, I'm sure some intern has been writing them and chose the wording himself with no consultation from Pete. But, of course, this has turned into another example of "let's punish the gay centrist for crimes all of the other candidates are guilty of and then pretend like we're not homophobic".

Have that many people never heard the term "heartland" before? People acting like Pete made the term up today, the fuck.

The fuck? Of course he did not make up the term. But if he so goddamned fucking smart, he should be able to see what the statement is, at best, empty and hollow. At worst, it smacks of the small-minded bigotry and racism that Buttigieg is already fighting to shake off. Why do that? 'America's Heartland' is a dog whistle for white middle-class Christian.

Remember when the Warren surrogate's openly homophobic tweets were discovered? Pete's getting more hate for this, for something people are projecting on to him, than Warren got for having an openly homophobic person as her main supporter in campaign videos.

If that doesn't prove there's a homophobic bias against Pete and that he's being held to standards nobody else is, then I don't know what can.

Oh, the Warren staffer also made racist remarks about latino and asian people. But, once again, this is buried under the mountain of homophobic hit pieces and smear campaigns aimed at Pete, who I'm awfully proud to see handle all of this with an adult composure that I doubt we'd see from any other candidate.

R58 is a moron. Newflash: there are people of all races and religions in the heartland. Not all minorities live in urban cities you fucking racist asshole.

R59, Ashley Preston is a black trans woman so all is forgiven by Warren.

Loved that hack Ava Duvernay melting down on Twitter yesterday. "Where is the heartland? What about mah Compton?!"

Bitch, look up Illinois. You know, that same heartland state Obama worked in and represented in Congress before being elected president? That one. And shut the fuck up about Compton already; people care about that damn place even less than they do about the industrial Midwest. You're not special because you grew up in a trashy place.

And I thought my geography sucked...

You are a dumb ass, R61. First of all, the midwest is not America's 'heartland.'

The term 'heartland' is very specific political rhetoric. It does not refer to anyone who is not white, working or middle class, and Christian, just as "Deutschland über alles" did not include Germany's Jewish population.

Wake up.

r64 The word is literally used in Obama's official WH biography, linked at r2. What part of that do you not understand? Wake the fuck up from your coastal bubble that sees racism and microaggressions everywhere. Or stay asleep and help us lose the electoral college, yet again.

R64, Everything is racist to you. Tou really are a fucking moron.

Because they're homophobic shitstains, r57.

R64, you should really send a message and inform Obama, who used the word in the description of his book. Big racist, he must be. GFY

American Heartland is a term Democrats need to win the flyover states. But the coastal elite’s have their heads shoved so far up there WeHo asses they don’t get the strategy.

A reporter asked him about it today.

[quote]I also asked Buttigieg to respond to the criticism of his use of “American heartland” in pitching himself to voters in a tweet yesterday. Critics called the term code for white America and dismissive of the values of part of the country not geographically in the middle.

I wonder if Ava Duvernay is now going to take issue with him saying that the future of the American Heartland is racially diverse. Because that's totally something a dog-whistling white supremacist would say, for sure. I swear the coastal Twitterati have lost all touch with reality.

r68 They positively CRAVE another popular vote win and electoral college loss in November because those are the people who can most afford another four years of Trump in their coastal cities. And the outrage is great for the skin as well, I'm sure.

the twitter mob keeps teeing him up to look attractive to anyone with a modicum of rationality and nuance.

[quote] the twitter mob keeps teeing him up to look attractive to anyone with a modicum of rationality and nuance.

I wouldn't go that far. The twitter mob has always been nuts, but his cornball midwestern schtick is wearing thin.

His cornball midwestern schtick can win the WH for the Democrats.

Maybe Ava Duvernay thinks blacks on live in Compton and Harlem.

Maybe Ava Duvernay thinks blacks only live in Compton and Harlem.

If I were Pete I would just reply saying "if you think there are no black people in middle america then maybe that says more about you than it does about me" and be done with it.

I wonder what Compton Values are. I wish Ava Duvernay would be specific.

Warren supporters are not very smart. Five days from the Iowa caucus is not the time to start calling everybody from there racist.

So apparently we are still doing the “Pete is not the right kind of gay” article thing. This time though it’s written by a straight women and about how some folks in the HEARTLAND identify as “Queers Against Pete.” She, a heterosexual woman, argues that Pete, a gay man from Indiana, does not understand LGBT life in Iowa. Wow!

R79 I don't get why you're surprised. Straight women try and speak on behalf of gays all the time, for some reason they seem to think that because we're both attracted to cock that it puts us in the same boat. Also this sort of homophobia isn't something Pete is a stranger to. Pete supporters that call out the homophobia are always labeled as pulling the gay card, but you can't deny that the "not the right kind of gay" shit is a very clear attack on gay men. Their right kind of gay is a trans woman of color, not a gay man.

This "nothingburger" is only going to help him by solidifying his place as a "sane" democrat. Nobody who hasn't drank the koolaid would find anything wrong with the tweet. I'm glad this is getting picked up.

r79 Yes, it's amazing, isn't it? She's straightsplaining (Karensplaining?) gay life in the Midwest... to a gay guy from the Midwest. 🥴

She's also on this week's episode of Lovett or Leave It, so I think I'll go ahead and skip that one.

Caucasian-looking biracial woman Soledad O'Brien ( that's a name I haven't heard since the '90s) thinks Pete needs to have a sit-down with a black staffer.

"It is a dog whistle. And maybe Mayor Pete isn’t aware of that. There is nothing more virtuous about a vision honed in the Heartland. Again—he should sit with his staffers of color and have them explain this to him. (And yes, I’m tired of politicians pandering."

Nobody's is going to convince Pete that "heartland" is a racist term. Not everyone is a total diiot like you, Soledad.

We get it; the woke hate him.

r83 Disappointed in Andy Richter, though I've unfollowed him ages ago because he's another Warren loon. That divorce has done weird things to him.

R85, I at first thought he had really bought into the idea that "heartland" was a racist dog whistle- him just being a shithead Warren supporter makes a lot more sense.

Well good thing I pretty much only listen to Conan’s podcast now.

R83 America’s heartland is not a racist term for Democrats. Neither is the word Christian for a Democrat.

Heartland means the middle of the country. Pete is from the middle of the country.

How is that racist? Ignorant people from the coasts have decided the Midwest is 100% white? Some people need to travel more.

This is really about some ignorant person that thinks every person of color in America is on a coast. Which bears no relation to reality. Iowa is mostly white, but I don’t see how that is Buttigieg’s responsibility. He has to go there, they all do. Iowa is one state.

When I was a kid, it was really common for people to get in the car on summer vacation and just drive. A lot of people tried to visit as many states as they could. Now I see why. If you’ve decided your home town is the center of the universe, and everyplace else sucks, it’s so much easier to stick with that theory if you never leave the house.

If Elizabeth Warren had said this, they'd be like "Yassss Queen" .

Everybody said it prior to Trump. I wouldn’t be surprised if he said it too in 2016. It’s a very common expression.

George W Bush talked about the heartland constantly during his campaigns. That expression doesn’t belong to any one person. I’m sure Midwesterners are very familiar with it.

This is like Republicans attacking Obama for wearing a tan suit. Just irrational hate.

Do you know what else came from the heartland? Barack Obama, Senator from Illinois. How soon they forget.

Wikipedia: US Census Bureau said 12 states such as North Dakota, South Dakota, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio are the Mid-West. These are typically associated with "Small Heartland". Large Heartland means "Small Heartland" plus Montana, Kentucky, Idaho, Colorado, Oklahoma, Nevada, West Virginia, Wyoming, Utah and Southern States Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas.

So here’s another part of the “all-white” Heartland: Detroit.

Some truth from an NPR correspondent.

[quote]I feel like most of the folks decrying the use of the term "heartland" are not, in fact, brown folks from the heartland, but folks from the coasts.

[quote]The last time I recall a Dem politician reference the "heartland" was Sherrod Brown after he won reelection in 2018. And it seemed noncontroversial. "You showed the country that progressives can win and win decisively in the heartland ... populists are not racists." If anything, Sherrod's speech (and politics) were WIDELY praised by D's inside and outside of Ohio as a model for the party.

In other words - once again - how coastals perceive Pete's words has more to do with how they perceive Pete himself than with what he actually says. You can thank the months-long media narrative for basically painting him as a racist, even though he has more black and far more brown support than Klobuchar.

R93, True. And the press are followers they keep regurgitating false narrative’s over and over again.