Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg laid bare his personal experience Wednesday as he brought DNC delegates to their feet in support of Kamala Harris.
Describing his everyday life with a husband and two young children, he used his own experiences to show people how far America had come — and how important politics was to it.
‘The existence of my family, is just one example of something that was literally impossible as recently as 25 years ago when an anxious teenager growing up in Indiana wondered if he would ever find belonging in this world,” he said.
He had described a typical dinnertime in his Michigan home.
“The dog is barking and the air fryer is beeping and the mac and cheese is boiling over,” he said.
“And it feels like all the political negotiating experience in the world is not enough for me to get our 3-year-old son and our 3-year-old daughter to just wash their hands and sit at the table. It's the part of their day when politics seems the most distant.
“And yet the make-up of our kitchen table, the existence of my family, is just one example of something that was literally impossible as recently as 25 years ago.”
He told the delegates that action by people like them was the reason he had his family life.
“This kind of life went from impossible to possible, from possible to real, from real to almost ordinary in less than half a lifetime,’ he said.
“But that didn't just happen. It was brought about through idealism and courage, through organizing and persuasion and storytelling, and yes, through politics, the right kind of politics, the kind of politics that can make an impossible dream into an everyday reality.”
