Does Dean Phillips Have a Path?

 

Andrew Yang tantalizes us with this question: Does Dean Phillips have a path to the Democratic nomination?  The answer is something like, Dean Phillips plays hockey and will feel familiar to people in Michigan. I don't know what that has to do with politics. Andrew Yang doesn't know what that has to do with politics. Andrew Yang doesn't get politics, and I don't think Dean Phillips does either. Dean Phillips is carbon-based and bilaterally symmetrical. It feels familiar. Is that something? 

Being 51 years old doesn't qualify you for president. I mean, it's older than the requirement to be at least 35 years of age. I'm 51. Dean Phillips, Andrew Yang, Nikki Haley, Beto O'Rourke, and all the members of Green Day are around the same age. So's Elon Musk. The idea that politics is about demographics and branding feels really business school and dumb. So are the packaging ideas:  I do a sport, so I'm relatable. I wear a vest. I have a haircut. I look presidential. 

The lesson of New Hampshire should be--Dean Phillips doesn't have a path, because there were no delegates to be awarded there but 1) $5 million got spent on him and 2) a mostly grassroots write-in campaign said "drop out Dean" and he got hammered and he isn't dropping out. Clue-having he isn't.

Gifted Amateurs

 

Andrew Yang and Marianne Williamson seem to be suggesting that Democrats shouldn’t prioritize Black voters because it will disenfranchise… racists. pic.twitter.com/CjT4FV36L6

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) March 10, 2023

Is it possible that the professional Democratic party folks understand what shapes their constituency better than 2020 presidential party also-rans? I'm not going to presume malice or racism, to explain Williamson and Yang here when they are just echoing the common wisdom that both parties in our two-party system are equally responsible for the polarization.

Yang represents the Forward Party (not right or left, but forward, whatever that's supposed to mean). You all know how I feel about third parties (they make no mathematical sense). Williamson was caught on a hot mic saying the following:

"What does it say that Fox News is nicer to me than the lefties are? What does it say that the conservatives are nicer to me?" Williamson said after an interview with Eric Bolling on Sinclair Broadcast Group's America This Week last week. 

"It's such a bizarre world," she added. "I didn't think the left was as mean as the right, they are," the activist and author asserted.

She feels the heat from the left more because she's closer, but she also doesn't seem to understand that the right-wing hopes she does bleed support from Joe Biden, so that Democrats will lose. They aren't being "nice". 

 I'm not saying Yang and Williamson are bad people. They are people who have some good ideas and some not-so-good ideas, but that doesn't really mean they "get" what are polarization is about or what we need to do about it. 

See, I'm not even siding with actual fascists to fill potholes. And there's one party that will fill potholes while not being fascists, and another that is calling for child labor and the elimination of trans people. This is why I greet the opinions of gifted amateurs with annoyance and even some condescension. They don't represent a new direction or an opportunity for healing. They seem naïve and a distraction. 

No, Definitely Not Right

.@Fwd_Party 👍🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/4y1xWSy4or

— Andrew Yang🧢⬆️🇺🇸 (@AndrewYang) October 17, 2021

There is no reason not to believe that the rest of the Forward Party isn't as goofy and derivative as this logo. It's a third-party for the 21st century: a solution that someone would only come up with if they absolutely had no idea what the problem was. Polarization is not the problem. Neutrality on a moving train is. Apathy is. Bullshit is.

This is like No Logos with a logo? I don't know. I feel like this is trying to create a market for a "product" that literally won't do anything. 

Bailey Warren Just Won the Caucus

This speech solidified my support for @ewarren. Hit the right talking points plus earned sustained applause in my house for thanking her very good boy, Bailey. #ElizabethWarren #HopeOverFear https://t.co/N6ImCeVFpT

— Rebecca Murray (@becmur) February 4, 2020

Now, you can say, "How is that? Last I heard, Pete Buttigeig declared victory." And that would be a thing....he did. But just listen to my reasoning here:

Math didn't win in Iowa (Yang). Organization didn't win in Iowa (Sanders). Experience didn't win in Iowa (Biden). The plan didn't win in Iowa (Elizabeth Warren). And common sense sure didn't win in Iowa (Klobuchar). And you can't just congratulate a clusterfuck and decide it stands for a species of win, Mayor Pete.

So, it's looking to me like the whole darn thing went to the dogs. And Bailey is a very good boye.


UPDATE: But, no joke, this process is classist, sexist and ableist, and relies on people without kids or with guaranteed childcare, people who don't have work commitments they can't back out of, etc. It's a dopey process that shouldn't ever come down to "the handful of hardheads that can stay as long as it takes" and "some kind of app and the backup app both of which could be as buggy as a cowflop in July."