When author, political commentator, and co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Dispatch Jonah Goldberg pressed him, asking what would have to happen to get him to run again for high office, Buttigieg joked, \u201cI feel like I\u2019m being led down a path here.\u201d<\/p>\n
More seriously, the Democrat who in 2020 won the Iowa caucuses and finished second in the New Hampshire primary, said it\u2019s a family decision.<\/p>\n
Six years ago, he wasn\u2019t a dad to twin 4-year-olds, and that makes a difference, he admitted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s going to be an interest in something totally different than we have right now,\u201d he speculated about the 2028 race.<\/p>\n
So many institutions have been \u201cburned down\u201d under the current administration, he said, and while Democrats may be inclined to reverse many of the recent decisions and bandage together things like the U.S. Department of Education and USAID to look like they did in 2024, \u201cThat\u2019s a bad idea.\u201d<\/p>\n
If these institutions were working well, he continued, the country wouldn\u2019t have elected someone who ran on a platform of upsetting the status quo. Whoever comes into the office next needs to rebuild from scratch \u2013 and do it smartly.<\/p>\n The question for the next few years should be \u201chow do we fashion a future where we have a better everyday life,\u201d he said, and \u201cI\u2019m going to work on that no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n Even as Buttigieg declined to commit to another national campaign, the two-time South Bend, Indiana, mayor and former U.S. Navy Reservist, delighted not only the live audience in the Bushnell\u2019s Mortensen Hall but also an overflow crowd in the Belding Theater, where a simulcast of the event, sponsored by the UConn School of Public Policy<\/a>, was being broadcast.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re really grateful for this opportunity,\u201d said Andrew Clark, director of the Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy in the School of Public Policy<\/a>, as he and Angela Eikenberry, professor and director of the School, welcomed those in attendance, many of whom stood to be recognized as affiliates of the School.<\/p>\n Before Buttigieg took to the main stage next door for a nearly two-hour conversation with Goldberg \u201cOn Democracy and the Future of the Parties,\u201d he took a quick turn in the Belding, greeted by a rousing welcome.<\/p>\n As Goldberg – a self-described Regan Republican who started off by saying he is not a Trump supporter – and Democrat Buttigieg kicked off the conversation, both agreed the violence happening in Minneapolis, especially the recent ICE shooting deaths of Alex Jeffrey Pretti and Renee Good, are horrifying.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a moment for national unity,\u201d Buttigieg said, later adding, \u201cI would like to believe that there is a future where we can actually be negotiating between left and right.\u201d<\/p>\n Congress was founded to be the \u201csupreme branch of government,\u201d Goldberg said, enumerating its powers including setting taxes and declaring war. \u201cA huge amount of the problems we have today \u2026 (are) because the Founding Fathers were outright wrong\u201d that 250 years later Congress would continue at the top.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not the U.S. Congress the Founding Fathers envisioned, Buttigieg agreed. With 435 seats in the House, only 1 in 10 races are competitive thanks to the way the districts are drawn and that\u2019s in a country nearly evenly divided among the parties. Congress isn\u2019t representative of the people anymore, he said.<\/p>\n The Founding Fathers also didn\u2019t imagine the amount of money that would influence politics and how that would shape Congress, Buttigieg said, disagreeing with Goldberg, who asserted the Citizens United decision was correctly decided.<\/p>\n Small, individual donors, Goldberg argued, are a bigger problem than large corporations because the latter have a longer vision and a more coherent understanding of the big picture. Small donors throw $15 to candidates who \u201cmonetize anger in the moment\u201d and capitalize on a person\u2019s fury.<\/p>\n That ability to amass a significant campaign war chest through small donors gets elected outliers with radical ideas who then infiltrate a party and stack Congress with fringe beliefs, he said.<\/p>\n Buttigieg was thoughtful when Goldberg asked if there was something he believed about the Democratic Party in 2020 that he doesn\u2019t believe now after having been in Washington as transportation chief for four years.<\/p>\n \u201cI always believed that ours was the party of and for working people and especially low-income people. Nothing should disturb Democrats more than the fact that we lost the vote of poor people in 2024,\u201d he said to applause from the audience. \u201cIf the majority of poor people don\u2019t think that we\u2019re here for them, what are we even doing as a party?\u201d<\/p>\n Is that why Kamala Harris lost the election in 2024?<\/p>\n \u201cShe represented continuity at a deeply anti-incumbent moment,\u201d Buttigieg said.<\/p>\n And is that why Donald Trump won?<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a vote to burn the house down,\u201d Buttigieg said, elaborating that people wanted change, so even those who may not have liked Trump supported him because that\u2019s what he represented. They thought he was decisive, commanding, and that he would get things done.<\/p>\n Nonetheless, Buttigieg said, \u201cHow you voted doesn\u2019t make you a bad person, and how you voted doesn\u2019t make you a good person.\u201d<\/p>\n To which Goldberg surmised that many cast their votes in opposition to a candidate rather than in favor of the one they voted for \u2013 another problem of today\u2019s political system.<\/p>\n![\"Three](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/2026-01-25_PeteButtigiegCTForumBushnell-6-1024x683.jpg\")
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