Pete Buttigieg asserts the 'socialist' attack has 'lost all power' for conservatives

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published 4 April 2019

Pete Buttigieg thinks socialism has lost its bite — and that's a good thing.

The rising 2020 star appeared Thursday on Good Morning America, where host George Stephanopoulos asked him about a common term President Trump and other conservatives have been using as an insult. While Buttigieg stopped short of saying he identified with socialism, he did applaud how unlike in "the darkest days of the '50s," you can't "use the word 'socialist' to kill somebody's career or to kill an idea" anymore.

The topic arose because when the South Bend, Indiana mayor was 18, he wrote an essay praising Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), then a representative, for proudly calling himself a "socialist." Trump is still trying to use that term as a takedown today, Buttigieg said, but he added that it's now "losing all meaning." Voters today, "especially in my generation ... just want to know if an idea is a good idea or not," Buttigieg said. He also claimed "the Affordable Care Act was a conservative idea that Democrats borrowed, and they called that socialist," invoking a liberal belief that pieces of ObamaCare stemmed from the conservative Heritage Foundation.

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.

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