The left had such high hopes for Pete Buttigieg. Though his presidential campaign wasn’t much to write home about, he quickly positioned himself as the guy who would eventually be the first openly gay president — assuming he could even win the Democrat Party nomination first. And that’s not looking so good right now.
Pete Buttigieg’s tenure as Joe Biden’s transportation secretary has been disastrous, making it unlikely for him to become a viable candidate for the presidency. He often makes headlines for negative reasons, including taking paternity leave during the supply chain crisis, labeling bridges and highways as racist, frequently taking personal trips, and being involved in incidents such as the Southwest Airlines issue, the FAA outage, and the Chinese spy balloon. Both Republicans and Democrats have criticized his job performance, including his responses to the environmental catastrophe in East Palestine, Ohio.
But fear not, Buttigieg has a trick up his sleeve. He’ll just tackle a made-up crisis: racist roads.
In a conversation with Al Sharpton on MSNBC, Buttigieg claimed (with a straight face, I might add) that there is a “crisis” concerning roadway fatalities in the United States and not just that people are dying in car accidents, but that there is a “racial disparity” in these deaths.
“We’ve got a crisis when it comes to roadway fatalities in America,” Buttigieg told Sharpton. “We lose about 40,000 people every year. It’s a level that’s comparable to gun violence. And we see a lot of racial disparities. Black and brown Americans, tribal citizens, and rural residents are much more likely to lose their lives — whether it’s in a car or as a pedestrian being hit by a car.”
Is this true? I have no idea. But not only does Buttigieg say it is, but he also insists that this disparity is linked to discrimination and the manner in which roads are designed and constructed. “There are a lot of reasons related to discrimination, related to… the… even the ways that roads are designed and built — who has access to a safe street design that’s got crosswalks and good lighting, and who doesn’t have that access. That can drive disparities, and we have a responsibility to act on that.”
Buttigieg says car crashes are caused by racism. pic.twitter.com/NCflLJSYxx
— Catch Up (@CatchUpFeed) April 16, 2023
Sadly, this is just one of many ridiculous things that the radical left has been deemed racist and, therefore, a crisis requiring solving.
Flashback: Buttigieg Doesn’t Want People to ‘Feel Guilty’ for What He Calls ‘Racist’ Infrastructure
For instance, the Biden administration is considering prohibiting gas stoves because some people believe that the emissions from these appliances disproportionately impact minority communities. Similarly, fireworks have been labeled as racist since their pollution is claimed to disproportionately harm minority communities. Exercise and physical fitness have been accused of being racist, too. Standardized tests, math, and even grammar have been called racist as well. Everything, at some point or another, will be called racist by someone.
Accidents on the road can be caused by various factors, including driver behavior, vehicle safety, and road infrastructure. Buttigieg’s baseless claim that roads are intentionally designed to harm specific groups of people fuels division and racial tension.
But, if Buttigieg really wants to play this game, then let’s look at a recently launched data explorer created by the Department of Transportation that reveals where the most dangerous roads in America are, via a heat map. It should come as no surprise that the areas with the highest concentration of roadway fatalities are big cities like Philadelphia, New York City, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. And who runs these big cities? That’s right! Democrats!
So are Democrats in big cities designing roadways to kill minorities? Because I guess that’s what Pete Buttigieg is saying.
