We're less than two weeks out from the first Democratic Primary in New Hampshire, and the mood among Democrats is grim. Joe Biden is polling behind Trump in almost every national poll. And the feeling among Democrats is well, there’s just nothing we can do about it.
Enter Dean Phillips: the one lone soldier Democrat trying to make a last ditch effort to stop the 2020 rematch from hell.
Dean is a moderate Democratic Congressman from Minnesota. He has political experience, but not the baggage of a long career in DC. He’s known as an incredibly bipartisan politician. He’s a philanthropist, a business magnate (who makes gelato of all things), a husband, and a father. But maybe, most importantly, he's a spry 54. By many metrics, he has what everyone claims to want in a Democratic presidential nominee.
He also offers an alternative for the American voter who feels alienated by both parties. As Peter Savodnik reported this week in the FP, “nearly half of Americans today identify as independents—not necessarily because they’re centrists, or moderates, but because neither party reflects their views.” Dean believes he can win over those voters. He’s already proven he will buck the Democratic party establishment, at great personal and professional cost. (As James Carville said, Dean’s bound to be treated like a heretic in Democratic circles from here on out.)
So, why is he doing this? And, can he actually pull it off?
On today’s episode, a conversation with Dean Phillips about his uphill battle to knock his own party’s nominee out of the way, his motivations for running in the first place, and how the Democratic Party has gotten to this pass. We also cover his positions on issues like the border crisis, education, policing, healthcare, Israel, China, his Jewish identity and his improbable friendship with Rashida Tlaib.
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I had to disengage when Mr. Phillips was cowering in the Capitol in fear for his life.
He talks about the duopoly ignoring the fact that Trump is not a creature of the duopoly, but a disrupter of the duopoly.
He fears that Biden cannot win, but says nothing about incompetence and policies that verge on the criminal (refusing to enforce the law as he sore to do, looting the economy, establishing racial and other identities as the organizing principle of our society).
Let me assure him that the D party does want to win and will use spurious prosecution , censorship and manipulation of voting operations to do so.
He engages in the usual word salad of what is or is not "democracy", without engaging the ideas that motivate current conservative thought.