Dems Are Freaking Out Over This Little-Known Minnesota Congresscritter

Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) launched a longshot bid on Friday to unseat Presidentish Joe Biden in the upcoming Democratic primaries that functionally don’t matter, yet somehow Phillips has Democrats freaking out.

Washington Post columnist Dan Balz serves as the unofficial voice of what all the correct people in Washington are thinking, and he led his Saturday column with the story of how Sen. Eugene McCarthy — another Minnesota Democrat — spoiled President Lyndon Johnson’s reelection in 1968.

Phillips’ campaign, Balz wrote, "is built on perceived anxiety about Biden’s age," and serves as "a placeholder for the unease about Biden, 80, that exists among many Democrats."

I’ll pause here a moment to reflect on Balz’s curious phrasing: "Perceived anxiety about Biden’s age." In August, an Associated Press/Norc Center poll found that 77% of Americans – including 89% of Republicans and 69% of Democrats — believe that Biden is "too old" to serve a second term. (Spoiler: Age aside, he was too senescent to serve a single term.) 

"When asked about the first word that comes to mind when they think of each candidate," AP reported, "26% of all adults cited Biden’s age and 15% mentioned words associated with being slow and confused." The execrable Philip Bump performed the same trick last week, referring to "Biden’s perceived slip-ups" in a column discussing both Biden and Trump’s ages.

Why would Balz and Bump work so hard to make Biden's very real troubles merely "perceived?" Because their actual job is to provide aid and comfort to WaPo readers who won’t have their worldview challenged in even the slightest way. 

But back to the subject at hand.

NBC News ran a gentler hit-piece, quoting various (but anonymous) House Democrats who are "simply baffled" by Phillips’ decision to enter the race and "warning that his actions have killed a once-promising political career."

Sorry, did I say "gentler?" Those oh-so-brave-anonymous Dems used NBC News to slip the shiv in between Phillips’ ribs. And you can be sure that NBC was happy to oblige them. 

Another Democrat said, "I think he genuinely believes there needs to be a primary and he thinks he’s doing the right thing." Notice the baked-in presumption that Biden’s position is somehow sacrosanct, that he’s above any totally unnecessary primary.

The Daily Beast’s David Rothkopf was just plain mean about it, going to Twitter to mock Phillips.

Dean Phillips would probably lose the Phillips family primary. And he should. He's letting his ego lead him into threatening the future of democracy in America. Have a seat, Dean. We've heard more than enough. https://t.co/xKA9v8fkxA

— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) October 30, 2023

And poor Marianne Williamson had to beg to get noticed. "CNN just said that 'President Biden has a challenger now,'" she tweeted. "I apparently — at 11% — do not exist."

"Know your place, woman!" the Democrat establishment would have replied had they deigned to notice her candidacy.  

The Hill’s Hanna Trudo gave us the inevitable "Republicans pounce!" angle. "Republicans watch eagerly as Phillips adds to Biden woes," her headline reads. "Republicans are hoping to shift the focus away from Trump’s myriad controversies — as well as from their recently chaotic search for a Speaker of the House." (I must also award a bonus point to Trudo for also slipping the "perceived" trope into her Republicans Pounce! article.)

Is turning a story about chaos in Democrat ranks into a story about the GOP’s troubles a cheap and overused gimmick? Of course, it is. That’s why I went to The Hill to find an example of it, safe in the knowledge that one would be there waiting for me.

For his part, Phillips told CBS News on Friday the real reason for jumping in. "I think President Biden has done a spectacular job for our country, but it’s not about the past. This is an election about the future. I will not sit still, I will not be quiet in the face of numbers that are so clearly saying that we’re going to be facing an emergency next November."

And that, dear reader, is also the real reason for the Democratic freak-out. They know how bad Biden’s poll numbers are. They know that he’s physically and mentally weak. They know he won’t get any better — he will, in fact, get worse — between now and Election Day.

Phillips might not have a butterfly’s chance in a hurricane of winning the nomination, but the very existence of his candidacy forces Democrats to look at things they’d rather not see. But instead of acknowledging the message, they’re kneecapping the messenger.