After Losing in Nevada, Pete Buttigieg Warns of ‘Inflexible’ Revolution Backing Bernie Sanders

Former Mayor Pete Buttigieg took the stage in Nevada on Saturday, warning that the revolution offered by Sen. Bernie Sanders would not be enough to beat President Donald Trump in November.

Buttigieg performed poorly in the Nevada Democrat caucuses, but he urged supporters to join the “battle on our hands” facing Democrats in the 2020 presidential election.

“Senator Sanders’ revolution has the tenor of combat, division, and polarization, a vision where whoever wins the day, nothing will change the toxic tone of our politics,” he said.

He admitted that the Democrat party was moving toward Sanders, but warned of the consequences.

“[B]efore we rush to nominate Senator Sanders as our one shot to take on this president… let’s take a sober look at the consequences—for our party, for our values, and for those with the most at stake,” he said.

Buttigieg argued that his “tone of belonging” driven by his campaign was more acceptable to most Americans, including illegal immigrants, rather than the angry populism of Sanders’ campaign.

“Senator Sanders believes in an inflexible, ideological revolution that leaves out most Democrats, not to mention most Americans,” he warned.

He warned that the Sanders revolution would fail to beat President Trump in the presidential election in November.

He also warned Democrats that a Sanders nomination would put other Democrats across the state in a terrible situation:

I believe the only way to truly deliver any of the progressive changes that we care about is to be the nominee who actually gives a damn on the effect you are having on the top of the ticket on those critical frontline house and senate democrats that you need to win.

Buttigieg also declared himself the strongest candidate to beat Sanders, noting that he was the only candidate to beat him in the Iowa caucuses.

“We’ve done it not by consolidating one extreme faction but by growing an American majority that is united not only over who we are against but what it is we are for,” he said.