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An Open Letter to Dean Phillips [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-12-01
Dear Congressman Phillips:
As a regular listener to Pod Save America, I was able to listen to your interview. Because I admire the art of understatement, I will only say I was less than impressed. Rather than equally amused and outraged at a singular display of self-congratulatory, opportunistic hubris. I can’t speak for all other Democrats, but you never answered the basic question—why are you running?--with anything approaching a compelling or indeed coherent reason. It seems to boil down to the fact that President Biden is, well, old, and polls taken over a year out from the election seem to show him losing to a man facing 91 felony counts on four separate indictments.
I’ll grant that you have a few interesting policy ideas, but they’re not all that much different than proposals coming out of the White House now, only to be suffocated in the dysfunctional legislative branch. And with all due respect, Congressman, if you were somehow to become president I can guarantee you that all the MAGA Senators and congresspeople, and their base, are not going to magically give way before you because you were the one-time chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus.
I’ll soon turn 52, and I’ve voted in every federal (and most state and local) election since 1990. And lest you accuse me of being a mindless partisan, I’ve voted for candidates ranging from Richard Lugar and John McCain to Bernie Sanders. The problem, which you either don’t see or refuse to acknowledge, is that the Republican Party of today is not the Republican Party even of 2000.
You raised a compelling point about the needs of rural and conservative blue collar Americans being ignored by the Democratic Party, but a question I wish you would have been asked was: how many times do you extend your hand, only to have it smacked? As someone who tries to be an informed and engaged voter, and who has leftist sensibilities, I get tired of feeling like I always have to be the practically-minded adult in the electoral room. At some point, we need to hold the conservative base responsible for the choices it makes rather than try to tailor our electoral strategy to the latest pearl of wisdom dropped in a diner in Lima, Ohio. I spent 20 years of adult life living in Texas, and I now reside in a pretty conservative area of Northeast Ohio. A lot of these people simply cannot be reasoned with. Maybe we as Democrats need to start admitting that to ourselves.
I’m not going to tell you to drop out. This is still a free country after all. For now at least. But I would ask you to do a little more than two weeks worth of soul-searching and ask yourself why you’re doing this and whether it’s really worth it. Meanwhile, I’ll be happy to cast my ballot for the Biden-Harris ticket a year from now and I suspect I’ll be far from alone.
Sincerely,
RubberDux
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https://dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/1/2209102/-An-Open-Letter-to-Dean-Phillips?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web
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