Dean Phillips was right. Dean who? Dean Phillips is the Minnesota congressman who had gall to mount a quixotic campaign to oppose President Joe Biden in several early primaries. Not because he disliked Joe Biden. Not because he thought Joe Biden had been a bad President. Not because he thought he was the best alternative. Phillips tried to get Whitmer and Shapiro to run but they wouldn’t talk to him. Phillips did it because he believed Joe Biden was too old and fragile to beat Donald Trump.
Dean Phillips was right. Dean Phillips was demeaned and destroyed by the Democratic Party establishment. How dare he? And Dean Phillips was right. Biden should have passed the torch.
This “debate” was incredibly sad. Sad to watch Joe Biden, like a fighter well beyond his prime, taking blow after blow. Always on his heels. Always reactive.
Someone I know had suggested watching with the volume off. If you did, it was clear. Biden looked baffled, bewildered, and downcast, literally. Not without cause. Debating Donald Trump is all but impossible. It’s like talking with someone who is psychotic. Not working in reality.
But Biden knew, or should have known, or his advisers should have known and prepared him for that. Citing facts to counter Trump is like shooting a gun at a phantom.
Post debate I feel very sad and heartbroken for our country. Neither man should be President. Neither man should be running for President. How has it come to this?
I’m not only sad. I’m angry. Angry that the Democratic Party hasn’t done better.
If defeating Donald Trump is Job #1 — and it is — the Democratic leaders should have said, “How can we win this?” Egos aside, precedent aside, focus — what do we need to do to defeat Donald Trump in 2024 and give the American people a candidate who can win, who we can believe in? The Democratic Party has failed us.
And the Republican Party has failed everyone else
Anthony, your critique of Joe Biden’s work tonight was spot on, but is that despair in your last comment, “The Democratic Party has failed us.”
I hope that I am mistaken about that impression. I’m not sure what theologians have to sayon the subject, but I dimly recall hearing somewhere that “despair” was unbecoming of a Christian, because…well you can say it better than I could.
So do not despair, but rather send a note to Patty and Maria and Suzan DelBene and our other Democratic legislators, and tell them it’s time to gird up their loins, so to speak, and get ready for the next battle — deciding who among them should take the torch from Joe Biden and offer to lead America for the next 4 years. Come to think of it, that’s what I’ll do as well.
I completely agree about Dean. He was the only one willing to publicly call out the emperor without clothes, and paid a high political price. He was confident because he is not a career politician and didn’t need to raise money. I bet he’s feeling quite validated right now, but also scared and angry like other Dems.