Remember Dean Phillips?
Few do. Few even know who he was. Even more have only the vaguest sense that the Minnesota Congressman challenged the President of the United States in the Democratic primaries in 2024, and most of them probably assume that he did so because he was egotistical or on a quixotic quest.
It’s not quite so simple. Phillips knew he had no chance, and he tried to get more prominent people to run. He finally chose to enter the race because he knew that Joe Biden was not fit to be president and that if he ran, either the country or the Democratic Party would suffer.
If Biden won, the country would be saddled with a senile president. If he collapsed, as he did, the Democrats would be devastated and lose all credibility.
Dean Phillips, in @TheFP, says what should be obvious to his party:
‘Lying and gaslighting the public about Biden’s health has cost the Democratic Party the public’s trust. Rebuilding it first requires the courage and honesty to admit to what happened.’https://t.co/FsEu2Hyrjf
— Oliver Wiseman (@ollywiseman) May 22, 2025
Phillips lays out his reasoning in an essay printed by The Free Press.
Constant lying and gaslighting the public about Biden’s health has cost the Democratic Party the public’s trust. Rebuilding it first requires the courage and honesty to admit to what happened.
In 2021, I had a front-row seat on two occasions when he addressed the House Democratic Caucus. I also spent time in close proximity to the president during two flights on Air Force One, in 2021 and 2022, where I was alarmed to see the president’s obvious decline in communication skills, gait, and leadership capacity. After the White House holiday party in December 2022, at which the president’s decline was too graphic to ignore, I was left with no doubt in my mind—Biden was unfit to serve a second term.
My opinion wasn’t an outlier. My congressional colleagues, like me, had eyes; behind closed doors we acknowledged the reality, lamented our party leadership’s inaction, and recognized the impending disaster awaiting us in November 2024.
After many of the same hushed conversations, I tried to impress a sense of urgency. I made calls to potential presidential candidates, like Illinois governor JB Pritzker and Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, to urge them to run. But they didn’t even want their names mentioned—let alone return my calls.
Frustrated, I went public, calling for an open primary. I implored prominent Democrats like California governor Gavin Newsom, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, and Vice President Kamala Harris to throw their hats in the ring. But cometh the moment—cameth nobody.
By the fall of 2023, I realized not only that Biden was in serious decline, but that the polling was clearly showing he couldn’t win. My party was sleepwalking into a second Trump term. So, with no one else willing to step forward—I entered the race.
I followed Phillips’ run for president not because I thought he had a prayer of winning, or even making a dent in the public consciousness. I did so partly because he is a Minnesota Congressman, and what counts as a “moderate” Democrat today in what is an increasingly insane party.
And, of course, I wanted to see how the Democratic Party treated a lonely truth-teller in their midst. After all, whatever they say now, every Democrat knew what Phillips did–Joe Biden’s brain was broken.
The answer, unsurprisingly, was “not well.” He was pilloried for telling the truth when he was spoken of at all.
I announced that I was running for president on October 27, 2023. Almost immediately, the party mechanism was activated, and I became persona non grata. The media, in particular MSNBC, where former Biden staffers wielded positions of influence—essentially deplatformed me and those supporting me. Party activists, paid and volunteer, took to social media to attack and discredit me.
The Democratic National Committee announced proactively that there would be no debates. State Democratic parties took steps to keep anyone not named “Biden” from being on the ballot, forcing us to file several lawsuits. In Florida, state Democratic Party chair Nikki Fried moved immediately to prevent my name from appearing on the primary ballot—literally disenfranchising millions of Florida voters by denying them the opportunity to even participate in a primary.
This wasn’t a fight for democracy, rather a coordinated fight against democracy—executed by a private corporation with no accountability to voters.
For a party ostensibly focused on protecting democracy and expanding voter rights and access, denying Democratic primary voters a single alternative to Biden was nothing short of rank hypocrisy.
The Democrats long ago gave up on democracy, first within their own ranks and now for the country as a whole. Rigging elections is their thing, and subverting democracy in favor of technocrats picking and choosing candidates and policies is their preferred mode of action. It’s why Hillary Clinton was the 2016 nominee despite almost nobody outside the establishment wanting her, and why Joe Biden got the nomination in 2020.
And, of course, why Kamala Harris was on the ballot last November. For three successive elections, the Democratic Party faithful have had no say at all in who their candidate would be.
It’s not hypocrisy that Democrats are displaying when they cry “Democracy!” It’s a bald-faced lie.
In real terms, reform means breaking down barriers to access ballots and the electoral system; fostering and inspiring competent, common sense candidates; and encouraging the rise of at least one compelling third party that offers competitive candidates.
For too many Americans, the Democratic brand is now associated with rising costs, inefficiency, tenure over talent, bureaucratic complexity, poor customer service, and the “canceling” of people and ideas that diverge from the Democratic gospel.
There must be an almost obsessive focus on real-world outcomes: lowering healthcare costs, expanding housing, improving public safety and public education, and managing cities, states, and our country in a fiscally responsible manner.
The Democratic Party can still redeem itself. But the first step is for everyone that was aware of Biden’s condition to come clean. No more evasions. No more insistence that he was sharp when you met him. The whole truth will come out, and they would be wise to get ahead of it. If a relatively little-known congressman like me knew that Biden was incapable of leading the country in a second term, what does that say about the complicity of the real party bosses whose names we all know?
As I wrote earlier this week, Bernie Sanders has admitted the same basic point that Phillips lays out here. Phillips and Sanders come from either end of the ideological spectrum in the Democratic Party, but they agree on one thing in particular: the Democratic Party is corrupt.
“Hasn’t been a fair Democratic primary since 2008.. Are they a threat to democracy?”
Sanders: “Yeah, I’m not going to argue with that”
— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) May 19, 2025
Say what you will about Donald Trump, even if you think he is a terrible human being and taking the country down a dark road (I don’t, obviously), it’s clear that he became the nominee because he was the choice of the Republican primary voters. In both campaigns, he faced serious opposition and fought his way up the ladder to become the nominee.
Does anyone else remember when Molly Ball bragged about how a secret cabal rigged the 2020 election for Joe Biden?https://t.co/KWPZjKrkXE pic.twitter.com/mGMJ8ALOg7
— Jurassic Carl 🦖🐭 (@carl_jurassic) August 2, 2024
Can the same be said of Hillary, Biden, or Harris? No, they were anointed. Democratic voters were gaslit and their will was subverted, and the Democrats did everything they could to rig the general elections. Lawfare, lawsuits, and last-minute changes (many illegal) to change voting rules, and what Molly Ball in Time Magazine labeled–approvingly, I might add–a massive conspiracy to “save” (read “rig) the 2020 election.
Hypocrisy and politics go together like peas and carrots, so some level of it should be expected. But there is a point beyond which spinning turns into corruption and outright deception. Think of the difference between salesmanship and conning somebody.
The Democrats crossed that line long ago.
Editor’s Note: To celebrate the passage of the tremendous One Big, Beautiful Bill, we’re offering a fire sale on VIP memberships!
Join us in the fight against the radical left today and support our reporting as President Trump continues to usher in the Golden Age of America. Use promo code POTUS47 at checkout to get 74% off!
