Harvard grad and military vet Pete Buttigieg (left) kisses his husband, Chasten. SCOTT OLSEN/GETTY IMAGES
I recently spent a weekend in West Lafayette, Indiana, watching my brother-in-law graduate from Purdue University. During the ceremony, former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels delivered a condescending, classless speech mocking students at other schools for being “snowflakes” who suffered PTSD and dared to seek counseling after Donald Trump’s election.
We sped out of town so quickly afterward that my brother-in-law forgot his diploma.
Two hours of flat, God-fearing freeway away from West Lafayette is a little town called South Bend, home to the University of Notre Dame and Mayor Pete Buttigieg. As we traversed the Indiana landscape, I wondered what it was like for the 37-year-old presidential hopeful to grow up there.