In the span of exactly one year, Pete Buttigieg will have gone from serving as the mayor of the 310th largest city in the country to the secretary of transportation, assuming Republican senators such as Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski decide to confirm such a relatively low-stakes nomination.

Joe Biden had reportedly considered his former primary rival to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs and then to head to Beijing as our ambassador to China. If all three of the positions the president-elect had in mind for Buttigieg seem completely unrelated, that’s because they are. Just four years after the Left went apoplectic over President Trump nominating Elaine Chao to run the Transportation Department, Biden went ahead and nominated a guy whose greatest transportation feat until now was making South Bend’s downtown streets more pedestrian-friendly.