Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

He really is that stupid.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

We will not go back.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

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You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / 2024 Primaries / Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: The Incredible Shrinking Dean Phillips

Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: The Incredible Shrinking Dean Phillips

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Minnesota’s Dean Phillips (D-WhatWasHeThinking) has a good start on winning this cycle’s ‘most entertaining no-hoper candidate‘. Be better for his own mental health if he acceded to this fact, but noooo, he’s a rich White Man and he’s gonna fight every inch of the way down…

He announced on Friday that he wouldn’t run for reelection to his House seat, and a couple of good Democratic candidates have already stepped forward. So he has plenty of time on his hands to… start personal beef with every supporter of Vice-President Kamala Harris on twitter. Not a path I’d have chosen, but you do you, Dean.

Brief recap of the original gaffe:


But… Many people are saying!

Minnesota Democratic voter:

Note the number of ‘likes’ (the heart icon):
Late Night Open Thread: The Incredible Shrinking Dean Phillips

And just incidentally, he’s giving that Harlan Crow donation to charity, okay?!?…

Go home, Rep. Phillips, you’re done like burnt toast…

Reader Interactions

64Comments

  1. 1.

    Hkedi [Kang T.Q.]

    Whenever I hear about Dean Phillips, I flash back to the time when that bunch of all white, all male idiots who thought that they could turf out Nancy Pelosi as minority leader in 2017 after Trump won.

    I wonder if any of those jackholes of 2017 still hold office.

  2. 2.

    sab

    Sometimes (often) very rich people get into Congress as Reps when they have no business anywhere near public office because they are idiots. Senate is a bit more selective.

  4. 4.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    Several weeks ago I got an email from the Dean Phillips campaign (I guess because I seem to be on the email list of EVERY Democratic officeholder or candidate) asking for my support and a contribution, and I promptly unsubscribed him.  I guess there are a lot of Democratic small donors like me, since he is going away even faster than I had hoped.  Thanks, AL and BJ, for letting me know who this clown was, so I didn’t just delete his email.  Unsubscribing is a clearer repudiation and way to let him know how I feel.

  5. 5.

    Yutsano

    Ugh. There is nothing so pathetic as the mediocre white man who happens to be rich. I hope this drains his bank account to the point where he has to scramble to save his business and fails. Go back to your gelato Dean.

    EDIT: Also too: insomnia sucks.

  8. 8.

    Balconesfault

    DougJ suggestion:   “Phillips Campaign Collapse Once Again Demonstrates DNC Corruption”

  9. 9.

    Baud

    He went “some people are saying….” on Kamala, even after admitting that it didn’t match his own experience with her.  Coward.

    This guy seems like someone who’s easily manipulated by others.  Someone talked him into this idiotic primary challenge.  I also hear Steve Schmidt or the Bernie guy in every one of his talking points.

  11. 11.

    Nukular Biskits

    Good early mornin’, y’all!

    What is it about rich white guys that makes them think their financial success somehow entitles them to political office?

    And I say this as a not-so-rich white guy.

  12. 12.

    Tony Jay

    *** JACKAL NEWS WHERE NEWS GOES BROKE ***

    Glem Greenwald – Guest Contributer

    ‘Can There Be Only One? – The Democrat Party vs American Democracy’

    Running scared of grassroots concerns about his advanced age and increasingly obvious fragility, a cabal of shadowy figures in orbit of Octogenarian President  Joseph Biden are reportedly coalescing around a policy of financial blockade, bureaucratic skullduggery and coordinated social media sabotage to drive Minnesota Rep and popular rising star Dean Phillips out of the race and out of the Party he’s served so loyally in Congress. Behind the scenes, notable establishment figures are starting to raise questions about the long-term detrimental effects of the Biden camp’s defensive lashing out, with some even hinting that individuals linked to unpopular Vice-President Kamala Harris might be behind the plot to prop up her ailing superior in order to protect her hoped for ascension to the Oval Office as the second African-American and first woman President in America’s 247 year history.

  15. 15.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Tony Jay:

    I used to read Glern back during the Iraq War/W Administration. Something happened to him to the extent that makes me wonder who hurt him so badly that his every utterance is an attack on the “shitlibs” (as DougJ would sarcastically note).

    Whoever that person was/is, I’d like to buy them a beer.

  16. 16.

    Baud

    @Nukular Biskits:

    I don’t know.  But there seems to be a lot of people, mostly white guys, that think they’re the best things to happen to libs since sliced bread, and react badly when they don’t receive the worship that they expect.

  18. 18.

    Tony Jay

    @Nukular Biskits:

    Nobody hurt Glenn, he was always a prolix self-promoter who just happened to be railing against the excesses of the American Empire back when that Empire was headed by the Tesla Model 3 of US Administrations. He’s gone completely anti-Democrat because most Administrations since then have been Democratic and many Democrats saw through his shtick years ago and tell him so, vehemently. He’s also a racist POS, hence the Trumpy-Humping.

    Glem, OTOH, just does it all for the money. Those class A hookers and blow don’t pay for themselves, y’know.

  19. 19.

    Shalimar

    @Nukular Biskits: Greenwald got very defensive when it turned out the Firedoglake PAC he co-managed with Hamsher to support liberal candidates mostly used their money to pay him a salary and didn’t actually have enough left to give to any candidate.  If he did change and wasn’t always neo-nazi adjacent scum, that may have something to do with it.

  21. 21.

    lowtechcyclist

    What BlackKnight10k said: there’s no public appetite for a challenge to Biden.  And that’s despite the best efforts of the media to create such an appetite.  He’s our guy, period.

    He’s also the best President of my lifetime.  That should kinda count for something.

  23. 23.

    Tony Jay

    @Jay:

    Next up, Meghan McGargle dishes on why Rosalynn Carter’s lifetime of service to others was actually performative do-goodery that arguably set the liberation of women back decades.

    *** JACKAL NEWS – AWFUL PEOPLE 24/7

  24. 24.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Shalimar: ​
     

    Greenwald got very defensive when it turned out the Firedoglake PAC he co-managed with Hamsher to support liberal candidates mostly used their money to pay him a salary and didn’t actually have enough left to give to any candidate.

    I don’t know if that legally constitutes fraud, but I’m big on not letting the lawyers own our vocabulary. So by any reasonable colloquial meaning of the term, that’s freakin’ fraudulent.

    I must’ve tuned out all those folks – Glem, Hamsher, etc. – by that time, because I missed this episode.

  27. 27.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Tony Jay: When Trump got in, ramped UP the drone war that was Greenwald’s primary case against Obama, and instead of going back to criticizing a Republican administration, he mostly went after the supposed hypocrisy of anyone attacking Trump… that should have made it clear what was going on.

  30. 30.

    Tony Jay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Didn’t it just? Almost like the same sources and forces that give suck to Glenn’s One Million Words To Say Uppitty substack are the same sources and forces who nourish MAGAworld’s prejudices.

    @Shalimar:

    They play Rugby in a lot of Brazilian high-schools. Maybe it was when idly thumbing through the Universidade de São Paulo’s online newsletter that Glenn stumbled across the artistic portfolio of action shots that brought their star hooker and future Greenwald-Spouse to his attention.

  32. 32.

    Matt McIrvin

    @lowtechcyclist:

    What BlackKnight10k said: there’s no public appetite for a challenge to Biden.  And that’s despite the best efforts of the media to create such an appetite.  He’s our guy, period.

    Based on my conversations with Democrats I personally know, most are not enthusiastic about voting for Biden at all–they see it as a grim duty they will undertake with distaste–unless they, themselves, are over 70. Then they often think Biden is fine and is a target of ageism.

    (I do think it’s odd that so many of the people worried about Biden’s age were 2016 Bernie supporters.)

    But none of them have any appetite for Dean Phillips. Who they want to vote for is the Johnny Unbeatable of their imaginations, not anyone realistic. Sometimes they have a name they bring up, who is never anyone who’s actually running.

  33. 33.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    (I do think it’s odd that so many of the people worried about Biden’s age were 2016 Bernie supporters.)

     

    I don’t think it’s odd at all.

    they see it as a grim duty they will undertake with distaste

    The ballot doesn’t care about your feelings.

  35. 35.

    Tony Jay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I’ll have to check my files but I’m pretty sure that Johnny  Unbeatable (Daredevil Stunt-Man & Firewalking Coach) is one of George Santos’ confirmed aliases.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Who they want to vote for is the Johnny Unbeatable of their imaginations, not anyone realistic.

     

    I think there a lot of Dems who think they’re avant garde rebels but who in fact deeply care about what society thinks of them and can’t handle it when the NYT and others go negative on our leaders.

  37. 37.

    MomSense

    @Nukular Biskits:

    He was always terrible especially to anyone who pointed out he supported George W and wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt in Iraq.

    His brilliant legal career was defending a Nazi from charges of incitement of violence on free speech grounds.  He got in a bit of trouble for some of his means which included unauthorized recording.  A little ironic no?

    I’m just relieved he is finally recognized as an ass here because it was no fun being one of a handful who never bought the shit he was selling.

  38. 38.

    EarthWindFire

    @Matt McIrvin: Based on my conversations with Democrats I personally know, most are not enthusiastic about voting for Biden at all–they see it as a grim duty they will undertake with distaste–unless they, themselves, are over 70.

    It’s the over-70 Dems I know who are most concerned. It comes up right after they tell me what a fantastic job Biden’s doing. And they can be concerned without being ageist because they’re old too. (I had this exact conversation with my mother a week ago but have had similar ones with my father and neighbor.) I usually remind them that he has Kamala and they pipe down.

  39. 39.

    brantl

    The media horseshit about Biden nauseates me. He has been as good a president as anybody, and a hell of a lot better than most of the last 9. His boss was the rare exception, and I think they were about even. The media won’t let it be a story, how well the Biden administration has been doing the job. I’ll vote for Biden, and gladly. His only misstep so far? Not calling out the murder that Israelis are doing now.

  40. 40.

    Matt McIrvin

    @EarthWindFire: I’m pretty sure the over-70 Dems are all going to get out and vote for him, though. Old people vote by habit. It’s young people who are fickle about it and need extra motivation.

  41. 41.

    Matt McIrvin

    @brantl: In actual policy terms, Biden is a better President than Obama. That’s nothing to do with them personally–had Biden been President from 2009-2017, he probably would have governed much like Obama did. It’s just that the party’s policy center has moved.

  45. 45.

    EarthWindFire

    @Steeplejack: Not with the Dems I personally know. But I firmly believe Biden’s age has been made a “problem” so uppity woman memes can be made legit for the campaign (did you know she’s a ni-clang?)

  46. 46.

    Ohio Mom

    For argument’s sake, let’s say Kamala Harris isn’t “prepared to step in.” In my lifetime, was that crook Agnew? Dan Quayle? Mike Pence? What a coincidence, all Republicans.

    And those are just the obvious unfit ones, some of the others may have floundered terribly if they’d been thrust into the presidency.

  47. 47.

    Steeplejack

    @Ohio Mom:

    Forget vice presidents—Harris is more qualified than some presidents we’ve had. Dubya and (of course) Trump spring to mind.

  49. 49.

    Another Scott

    I assume that Manchin has been watching Phillips’s campaign implosion and has been trying to find a way to get the press attention without turning into (more of) a joke before he retires. Probably why he’s still holding back and being coy about his intentions…

    Sinema needs to speak up pretty soon too, right??

    Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  50. 50.

    RevRick

    @Ohio Mom: Exactly! And let’s not forget Sarah Palin. But I think part of the problem is that we overvalue the President as part of our system of government. They aren’t kings, after all. They have to negotiate with unruly Congresses, for one thing. But even though they are in charge of the Executive Branch, they don’t do things on their own. They require a vast army of Cabinet members and assistants to implement policy. And Biden has assembled a super competent team to get things done.
    I have no fear that should anything happen to President Biden, God forbid, that Kamala is more than capable of filling the office. I’m sure she would keep Biden’s team. Her big task would be to select a new VP.
    What does scare me is that that God-damned fascist would surround himself with incompetent toadies eager to do his bidding of cruelty and destruction.

  51. 51.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Matt McIrvin:

     In actual policy terms, Biden is a better President than Obama. That’s nothing to do with them personally–had Biden been President from 2009-2017, he probably would have governed much like Obama did. It’s just that the party’s policy center has moved.

    I think there might’ve been some significant differences, in areas where the location of ‘the center of the party’ really didn’t matter so much.

    While I don’t think Biden would have gone as far in 2009 as he did in 2021, I think he’d have been less prone to being buffaloed into settling for proposing a too-small stimulus to Congress. (I think Atrios was right on target with his criticism of the whole ‘negotiating with themselves’ within the Administration before Congress was even involved.)

    The fact that the economy was still in the shitter in 2010 (unemployment actually got worse from mid-2009 to mid-2010) was a big reason why 2010 was such an electoral disaster.  Which we’re still stuck with the consequences of, in gerrymandered legislatures in competitive states like Wisconsin and North Carolina.

    And while Biden might’ve run on leaving Iraq and finishing the job in Afghanistan like Obama did, I suspect he would have realized many years earlier that we needed to just GTFO, and wouldn’t have stayed once he knew there was no point.

  52. 52.

    Matt McIrvin

    @lowtechcyclist: I interpret Biden’s relative dovishness as a consequence of being part of the Obama administration and seeing its foreign policy operate from the inside. In the GWB era he was relatively pro-war like the median Democrat.

  54. 54.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I interpret Biden’s relative dovishness as a consequence of being part of the Obama administration and seeing its foreign policy operate from the inside. In the GWB era he was relatively pro-war like the median Democrat.

    Well sure, so as President he would have seen his own foreign policy operate from the inside.  And it would have had the same effect on him as President as it did as VP.  And he’d have been in the position to act on it.  It might have taken him a few years to come around on it, but less than eight, I’d expect.

  55. 55.

    Another Scott

    @Matt McIrvin: I heard a bit of a show on C-Span a few days ago that was interesting.  It was talking about, among other things, The Grand and Glorious Surge in Iraq.  I think Obama played that just about perfectly, given all the constraints.  He, Obama’s OMB guy who later became chief of staff, said that Obama made the generals present him a plan and said that it had to be specific before he would sign off on it.  The OMB guy was at the meeting to talk about the costs and what it would mean for the rest of the budget.

    The OMB/CoS guy said that the original Surge plan from the generals was to last for 10 years.  It would have cost multiple $T according to the OMB.  It was unrealistic in the extreme.

    As I remember the time, Obama said something like “give me a plan for 18 months, and that’s it”.  And that’s mostly what happened, as I remember it.  And McCain was happy, and the press was happy, and Obama got no credit for standing up to the generals and saying “NO”.

    Anyway, the times were different.  I don’t imagine that a Biden presidency in 2001-2009 would have been that much different because Summers and all the rest of the banksters, St. Petreaus, and the “OMG it has to be less than $1T!!!11” senators, and all the rest were still out there.  Moscow Mitch still wouldn’t have let a liberal replace Tony on the SCOTUS, also too.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  56. 56.

    Geminid

    @Hkedi [Kang T.Q.]: You may be talking about the effort by a few Democratic Reps. to oppose Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. That worked out between the 2018 midterms and the beginning of the new Congress in January.

    The three most prominent dissidents were Seth Moulton (MA), Kathleen Rice (NY) and Tim Ryan (OH). Rep. Moulton is the only one still in Congress.

  57. 57.

    Shalimar

    @2liberal: That is a shame to hear.  Joking aside, Miranda seemed much more consistent and positive in his beliefs than Greenwald and I wish he were still alive.

  59. 59.

    waspuppet

    LOVING that CNN’s chyron is “BIDEN CHALLENGER” when “PHILLIPS” would not only fit but is actually shorter.

    You’re not a chyron name, pal.

  60. 60.

    BruceFromOhio

    @Shalimar:

    Greenwald got very defensive when it turned out the Firedoglake PAC he co-managed with Hamsher …

    Wow wow wow, what a jolt from the time machine. Gives rise to many “where are they now?” wonders.

  62. 62.

    NoOneYouKnow

    @Yutsano: And we did read it,  and lo, it was good to us, and we hailed it, saying amongst ourselves, this prophet is not honored among us, and these things are true, for we have witnesses.

    And many rejoiced in the gift link, and appreciated Yutsano.

  63. 63.

    Elle from Minnesota

    On behalf of the state of Minnesota, I’d like to apologize to the rest of the country for the political existence of Dean Phillips. As an embarassment to the state, he’s almost neck-to-neck with the ‘My Pillow’ guy.

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