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You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House" / So This is Going Well

So This is Going Well

by | 68 Comments

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Everyone loves a good train wreck:

Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) says he will host 119 town halls in his long-shot primary challenge against President Biden. If the reception at his first is any indication of the next potential 118, the nascent campaign faces an even steeper uphill battle for the nomination than expected as a little-known congressman challenging an incumbent president.
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Speaking in a theater here less than a week after announcing his campaign, Phillips faced screaming and profanity from voters disappointed in his response to a question on a ceasefire in the Middle East. He was accused of gaslighting the lone Black woman in attendance, who was escorted out of the event — but not before a handful of other attendees walked out of the room.

I dunno what this guy is thinking. One thing I am super happy about is although I am a man with many flaws and far fewer talents, I am at least fortunate enough to have enough self awareness that over abundance of ego was never a problem. Whatever, Dean. Have fun.

I have lost all patience with the Israel/Hamas war. It simply has to stop. They are bouncing rubble at this point. Never again means for fucking everyone.

Reader Interactions

68Comments

  1. 1.

    MattF

    The catch seems to be that although we can all imagine a glorious future where good is rewarded and evil is punished, the path you take to get there is littered with the skeletons of your predecessors.

  2. 2.

    Rose Weiss

    I have never understood what he thinks he can offer to Dem primary voters. Apparently he thinks he should be elected because he’s young?

  3. 3.

    Jeffro

    I dunno what this guy is thinking.

    I bet there’s some Harlan Crow-type dark money swirling around ol’ Dean Phillips’ bank accounts right about now.  Or at least, the promise of mucho dinero to come.

    No Labels…RFK Jr…Cornel West…it’s all the same m.o. for the Guys With Too Much Money.

  5. 5.

    karen marie

    a loud live musical performance featuring his singing wife kicked off the event,

    Kill me now, before I have to hear his wife sing.

  8. 8.

    karen marie

    @Jeffro:  Apparently he got a boatload of money from Crow.  He claimed to not know he had gotten that money but that he had a vague recollection of asking Crow for a donation.

    We’re currently being ruled by a crop of fucking morons.  That they’re corrupt morons is just the icing on the cake

    @David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:  Ha!

  10. 10.

    BellyCat

    Israel, bombing women and children to “eradicate HAMAS” is trying REALLY HARD to lose America’s (previously) unwavering support. FFS…

  14. 14.

    Tony Jay

    The dark eminences of the over-indulged richerati seem to be throwing every possible flavour of Not-Biden against the wall to see if they stick, but all they’ve produced so far is a growing pile of flat, shallow failures. Still, its not like they can’t afford to keep on trying.

    Oh, and while your solution to the Israeli assault on Palestinian civilians seems perfectly sensible, since it failed to open with a sufficiently exhaustive condemnation of Hamas it’s either unhelpful or somehow bordering on antisemitic blood libel. Not sure which, but it’s probably safer to assume the worst and just get on with the self-scourging.

  20. 20.

    Michael Bersin

    @karen marie:

    His son, Jay Ashcroft, is currently Missouri Secretary of State and the leading republican candidate for Governor in 2024. My greatest fear is that dad will tour the state campaigning for junior, singing that abomination, which could result in me accidentally being subjected to hearing it.

  21. 21.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    Not that it matters one bit but the Israeli government has lost me with their response. A bull raging in a china shop would be less destructive. I too want Hamas stopped and those who were involved brought to justice but not like this. This is responding to one horror with another one.

    That’s all I have to say on it as expressing an opinion on this doesn’t accomplish a damned thing.

  22. 22.

    dexwood

    Never again means for fucking everyone.

    Fuckin’ A. A shame humans seem to forget this simple truth.

  23. 23.

    Ken

    @Tony Jay: it’s either unhelpful or somehow bordering on antisemitic blood libel.

    I’ll go with unhelpful. From your reporting, “antisemitic blood libel” is reserved for the internecine battles of the British Labour Party, and I don’t think John is a member.

  24. 24.

    Ohio Mom

    I realized I didn’t know very much about Dean Phillips so I googled him. I learned that his biological father died fighting in Vietnam; his mother remarried into a wealthy family and her new husband adopted Phillips.

    So he has the ego of (to borrow a phrase) someone born on third base who thinks he hit a triple.

    I also learned he is Jewish. That was a surprise to me but as I said, I didn’t know anything about him. Well, other than he’s a complete nincomoop for running against his party’s perfectly fine incumbent.

    ETA: How could I leave out this tidbit: “Phillips’ adoptive grandmother, Pauline Phillips, was the author of the famous “Dear Abby” advice column.”

    Obviously did not pick up on her fabulous common sense.

  25. 25.

    Will

    Maybe we should give Hamas nukes and let them and Israel end each other for all time so we can get back to watching Thursday Night Football.

  26. 26.

    Citizen Alan

    @BellyCat: They will never lose the unwavering support of the evangelicals. Any atrocities Israel commits against Palestine is just one more reason for Jesus to exterminate them on Judgment Day.

  28. 28.

    Draco7

    What really gets me about this guy’s act is thinking about all the Dem opponents over the past 60 years while MN CD3 was held by Republicans. My dad ran for the seat while I was still in school there – death threats, campaign office raids, and he spent most of his life savings on the effort. This guy shows up in a favorable year, spends whatever’s necessary…and now he’s bored after almost two whole terms. Good thing he wasn’t elected Senator – I don’t think he could have held out that long.

  29. 29.

    Roberto el oso

    Hasn’t the phrase “Never Again” been used in reference to genocides other than the Holocaust only fairly recently? I grew up hearing it used very specifically in regards to violence against Jews.

    I agree that it should be applied to all genocides but I disagree that when Israelis use the phrase and yet support the sort of thing that their government is carrying out in Gaza that this makes them hypocrites.

  32. 32.

    Yutsano

    So…the Republicans want to devastate my federal agency and take away anything that helps anything but the top 0.01% and then we get this asshole. I just have one question:

    Does he even have a platform beyond Biden is old? And it’s not my job to go to his website. He needs to be out here specifically telling me. Otherwise I’m with the old man.

  35. 35.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Roberto el oso: My impression is that there’s been a wider, long-running debate over whether the Holocaust should primarily be remembered as a universal warning about the risk of a whole population becoming genocidal, or as specifically a lesson about hatred of Jews. And that I’m not the right person to elaborate on that.

  36. 36.

    mrmoshpotato

    Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) says he will host 119 town halls in his long-shot primary challenge against President Biden. If the reception at his first is any indication of the next potential 118, the nascent campaign faces an even steeper uphill battle for the nomination than expected as a little-known congressman challenging an incumbent president.

    Next 118 town halls on the Sun.

  37. 37.

    wjca

    @BellyCat: Israel, bombing women and children to “eradicate HAMAS” is trying REALLY HARD to lose America’s (previously) unwavering support. FFS…

    Well, Netanyahu has been acting for years like his long term goal is to destroy Israel.  (At least, Israel as a modern nation.)  So why wouldn’t he try to trash Israel’s most critical alliance?  If you look at the big picture, it’s entirely in character.

  41. 41.

    Matt McIrvin

    @BellyCat:

    Israel, bombing women and children to “eradicate HAMAS” is trying REALLY HARD to lose America’s (previously) unwavering support. FFS…

    I dunno, if I try to think of what other country that behavior reminds me of, the first one that comes to mind is America.

    (As opposed to the Russian variant, “bombing women and children to remind them that they are actually Russian.”)

  42. 42.

    piratedan

    @wjca: when its revealed that Bibi has been helping to prop Hamas up so they can justify each other’s existence and all of that shoulder to shoulder that Netanyahu engaged with Putin on… makes me hope that enough Isrealis have kept receipts to finally shitcan his ass and kick him to the curb.

    Just another instance where someone is more concerned with getting, keeping and wielding power rather than doing the fucking job.

  44. 44.

    sdhays

    @Tony Jay: What’s kind of amazing is how much stupider the ratfucking has gotten. They thought they had a real winner with Robert Kennedy Jr. because…he agreed with them on a bunch of things. They should be looking for people willing to say things (some) Democrats would like in order to split them away from Biden, but they’re so far up their own rectums that they think they can run someone who would be totally comfortable with most things said on Fox (or even be a prized contributor) in a Democratic primary and it will all work out.

  46. 46.

    danielx

    @piratedan:

    Well, yeah. Bibi really. really doesn’t want to go to jail and once he’s run out of office there’s a reasonable chance he might. Much like someone else I can think of, amazingly enough.

  47. 47.

    ArchPundit

    a loud live musical performance featuring his singing wife kicked off the event

    And

    Phillips blinked rapidly as Chan asked her question

    Steve Schmidt knows his customer base–rich dudes with no charisma

  48. 48.

    Warblewarble

    It won’t do to say pity about all the dead children, when you have been providing cover and the means of killing  them.

  49. 49.

    Tim C.

    Gonna add this, that to a lot of people, including me,  there’s a little tickle in the back of the brain about running for office and “making a difference.”  I live in a solid blue district (OR-3) and my better-than-average Representative Earl Blumenauer is retiring after a long and distinguished career in the house.   I’m just a lowly social studies teacher at a small High School, but even I had a momentary thought of just seeing what might happen if I pay the $100 fee to file in the Democratic Primary.

    So if you have made it that far, I can see similar delusions hitting an actual member of the House.

  50. 50.

    ArchPundit

    @Tim C.: Add to that Steve Schmidt stroking your ego while lifting your wallet and it’s a powerful pull.  Especially if you have the bloated sense of self-importance that Dean Phillips has.

  51. 51.

    Jay

    @piratedan:

    the Art, is that you “loan” your campaign your own money,

    then pay off that “loan” with donations money from the rubes and Ogliarches.

  52. 52.

    patrick II

    The civilian casualties are not a necessary but is a purposeful result for Bibi to show how tough he is after screwing up so badly.

  53. 53.

    Jackie

    @Rose Weiss: He agrees with Biden, I believe. His spiel is he’s Young Biden; much like DeSantis is Young TIFG. Why settle for light when you can get the real deal?

  55. 55.

    Spider-Dan

    On the subject of gaslighting: pretty interesting that although New Hampshire has lost its privileged status and – if anything – will likely be even LESS influential than other mid-primary states of its size (due to the inevitable delegate penalty the DNC will impose after NH runs its primary earlier than allowed), these knuckleheads would still rather talk to a bunch of lily-white people in diners rather than attempt to campaign in an actual early state like SC or NV.  But no, that’s not at all disrespectful to minority voters!  Why would you possibly think so?

  56. 56.

    CaseyL

    Tom Nichols says well-off assclowns run for public office because they’re bored with their comfortable lives, and also want to stand out in their crowd of well-off assclowns.  That would sort of explain hairbrained nitwits like Dean Phillips.

    They want the attention, they want to think they matter, and they have a bunch of grifters telling them how wonderful they are.

    I miss the days when third party candidates were single issue cranks.  At least they had some sort of reason to run other than ennui.

  58. 58.

    Aussie Sheila

    @patrick II:

    My thinking exactly. He, trump and putin are the archetypal ‘mafia’ style leadership that emerges in polities riven by corruption and anti democratic politics. The destruction such leaders wreak on their people and sometimes, the whole world (see WW2) appears to be something  that people and nation states never seem to learn until it’s too late.

    I am sick to the stomach with the violence wrought on Israelis on 7/10, and sick to the stomach with the violence visited on the people of Gaza and now on the West Bank. The sooner the US, the UK and incidentally, Australia reign in the Israeli government and require direct talks on a separate sovereign state of Palestine, the better.

    Unfortunately it looks like Bibi has Biden in a headlock when it comes to the US demanding its client state behave itself.

    I hope to the heavens that all three of these tyrants receive their just deserts in the year ahead. Putin dead or alive in front of The Hague, Bibi sacked from government and facing prison for his corruption, and trump alive, facing serious prison time for sedition/obstructing the US government and bankrupt via New York demanding all his assets to pay for his business corruption.

    Lets just say, I have a dream!

  62. 62.

    Tony Jay

    @Ken:

    That’s certainly true, but I think there’s special dispensation for senior members of the UN, academia and Interweb celebrinformers. Cole may qualify under one of those headings.

  63. 63.

    Barry

    @danielx: “Well, yeah. Bibi really. really doesn’t want to go to jail and once he’s run out of office there’s a reasonable chance he might. Much like someone else I can think of, amazingly enough.”

     

    I wonder if he figures that a vast slaughter will protect him, binding enough Israelis to him in a literal blood pact.

  64. 64.

    Princess

    @Barry: Could be. Or maybe he’s banking on the fact that the US faced absolutely zero cost for the massive civilian deaths in Iraq and in fact no one in the US, including those who were opposed to the war, ever seemed to give a damn about them even at the time. I think he’s underestimating the hypocrisy of Americans on the centre-left though.

  66. 66.

    lee

    Here’s how fucked up the Israel/Palestine thing is: A simple statement like ‘We should have peace and innocents shouldn’t be killed’ will inevitably get you excoriated by one side or the other.

  67. 67.

    Nettoyeur

    @Aussie Sheila:  In times of turbulence and uncertainty, nervous people turn to simplistic populists. My father (born 1925) recalled that during the Depression , parts of US population were attracted to Stalinist Communism, the Share the Wealth vision of Kingfish Huey Long of Louisiana, the Nazis (the German-American Nazi Bund had a full blown Sieg Heil rally in Madison Square Garden. Life is simpler with a Führer who has a simple answer to everything. See also fundamentalist Christianism, Islamicism, or Hindu nationalism.

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