Pete Buttigieg—presidential candidate, husband, enraged pork chop devourer, mayor of a town with a population lower than the number of people who follow Current Affairs on Facebook, beloved darling of wealthy white boomers everywhere who just wish their grandsons wore collared shirts and spoke with some goddamned civility—Pete Buttigieg is a fucking snake. Beyond such snaky behavior as backtracking on Medicare for All, courting billionaire donors, and dismissing labor rights activists as “social justice warriors,” Buttigieg also worked for the cold-bloodedly amoral McKinsey consulting firm for three years. Those three years are a black hole in his record; he never speaks of them, citing the NDA he signed with the company as an excuse. As a result, we have no idea what Buttigieg did as a McKinsey employee. Was it something like McKinsey’s work on the contract with ICE, in which ICE officials were so horrified by the consulting firm’s proposed cuts to detainees’ food and legal rights (That’s right, ICE! Those guys! They were horrified!) that most of the recommendations were never even implemented? We can’t say. We can, however, guess wildly. In fact you could argue that we simply MUST guess wildly until Mayor Pete comes clean and tells the truth about what he did in those three mysterious years at McKinsey.
And so, without further ado:
What did Pete Buttigieg do at McKinsey?
- Grew more Pod Save America hosts in the secret lab where they do that.
- Learned to say “making opioids more addictive is great for your bottom line” in seven languages.
- Focus-grouped the best title for a 5’5” man’s memoir, landing on “Shortest Way Home.”
- Not saying they’d do it, but consulted with a few regimes about what if they could do a real-life Hunger Games.
- “My classroom was everywhere—a conference room, a serene corporate office, the break room of a retail store, a safe house in Iraq, or an airplane seat—any place that could accommodate me and my laptop.” (Editors’ note: This is a real quote from Buttigieg’s memoir.)
- Used the company gym membership to train for the day Joe Biden challenges him to a push-up contest.
- Globally managed non-optimal treatment of civilian non-clients. (At McKinsey this roughly translates to something like “helped rich warlords hunt people for sport.”)
- Probably quietly disagreed with some things Mohammad bin Salman did while they were hanging out, but acted cool about it in the moment so as not to offend the dude. Hahaha. You do NOT want to offend that dude.
- Didn’t do any of the really bad stuff, if that’s what you’re thinking.
- Totally did some stuff we’ll get to see Miles Teller re-enact in the next horrifying Errol Morris exposé. .
*You can’t sue us because we said “guesses” and “maybe.” Also, pending Mayor Pete telling us what actually went on at McKinsey there’s no way to prove we’re wrong!
