So what does Buttigieg know about trust? A former U.S. Navy reservist, he said he gleaned a lot about the topic while deployed to Afghanistan in 2014. While driving through a central intersection in Kabul, nicknamed “suicide circle” because of all the bombings that take place there, he noticed a local man approaching his vehicle. Buttigieg considered that this person might be attempting to affix an explosive device to the wheel well of his car, a common tactic in the area, but he ultimately decided to go with his gut and not level a weapon. As it turns out, in a tight traffic jam, a piece of the Afghan man’s Toyota Corolla had merely gotten stuck on Buttigieg’s vehicle, and he had only wanted to dislodge it.
“He was placing his life in my hands by approaching without being able to communicate why, and I was making the decision about whether I could trust him with my life,” Buttigieg said.
More recently, the former mayor was thrust into greater identification with the importance of trust while marching over Alabama’s Edmund Pettus Bridge in March. The event was meant to commemorate Bloody Sunday, the day in 1965 when civil rights activists faced a violent police force while marching for voting rights in this same location.
“These marchers had enough trust in each other and had enough trust in their cause and had enough trust in the possibility of our institutions to change when they were confronted with the demand, that they were able to step forward and risk their lives in order to do it,” Buttigieg said. “By putting their bodies on the line, these marchers had the courage to change the trust equation in ways that directly led to some achievements in the civil rights era.”
So trust can save lives and change the world. But it’s not easy to achieve, Buttigieg acknowledged, especially when it comes to trusting the government. And he would never ask anyone to “naively suppose the system is perfect,” he said, citing gerrymandering, corporate money in politics and issues of systemic racism that have legitimately undermined faith in American institutions. “But our system is also the only thing that can fix itself. In other words, the elegance of the Constitution is that it creates ways to self heal if — and only if — people get involved.”
To facilitate this self-healing — to transform the government into something more effective, responsible and trustworthy — Buttigieg stressed the importance of backing up activism on social media and in the streets with voting at the polls, “the moment of maximum power.”
He also highlighted the importance of supporting good reporting, necessary for combating dangerous misinformation that proliferates on social media.
“As mayor of South Bend, I had dustups with the local paper, because I would get mad at them if I didn’t think their coverage was fair,” Buttigieg said. “But I also know they cared about making sure it was fair. And we would be so much worse off as a community if we didn’t have journalists.”
Buttigieg urged students not to underestimate the value of local involvement.
“Even the toughest issue you hear about nationally gets cashed out on a local level,” he said. “That is certainly true with racial justice and police violence, but also issues of economic justice, housing, even climate. You know, in order to testify in front of Congress, you have to be invited. In order to speak out in a local decision-making process, you just show up. I’ve seen votes go differently because of the testimony of high school students not even old enough to vote who compelled elected officials to think about things a little differently. One of the most powerful things in the world is a young person looking someone in a position of responsibility in the eyes and saying: ‘What are you doing to keep me safe?’ ”
At the end of his talk, Buttigieg took questions from students in the audience that ranged in topic from the place of transgender folks in the military (people should be “allowed to bring their whole selves to serve,” he answered) to his future plans (that’s undecided, though more public service is likely).
Esha Shah, a sophomore world scholar and public policy and communication double major, asked the former mayor for his advice on finding common ground during a time of such terrible political polarization.
The key is getting outside of one’s information silo, Buttigieg said, by joining groups where different communities and perspectives overlap: a soccer team that welcomes Democrats and Republicans. A church that is multigenerational. Any club or organization that allows for trust-building encounters beyond one’s own concentric circle.
In the meantime, he told the students: Take heart. You’re already off to a great start.
“Probably the greatest thing humanity has ever invented for the purpose of doing this, other than the city, is the university,” Buttigieg said. “You’re in the middle of it. This is your best chance to engage with people who come at the world differently than you.”
