the united states capitol building lit up at night
On January 3, Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) officially left the House of Representatives after serving three terms in Congress. He warned that his party should make fundamental changes if it hopes to remain politically relevant, and lamented that actually serving the public is incompatible with the way Congress currently operates.
In his exit interview with Politico, Phillips — who ran a doomed campaign for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination against President Joe Biden — referred to his party as "rudderless" and "totally devoid of leadership." He largely attributed the shape of the Democratic Party to a self-defeating culture within the party that puts adherents to the status quo over those fighting for fundamental change.
"It starts with listening, and it means getting out to places and spaces and people and communities that we’ve all but turned our back on," he said. "I think it’s ironic that the Republican Party is now representing America’s working class. It’s astounding, and that was ceded to them by people that have prioritized things like tenure over talent, identity politics over pragmatic problem solving. It’s as simple as that, but it takes leadership."
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Phillips told Politico that Congress has effectively "legalized" corruption, and pointed out that members have to spend at least half of their time calling donors to solicit campaign cash, rather than serve their constituents. He acknowledged that while Biden's late exit from the 2024 campaign and the Democratic ticket's subsequent failure to stop President-elect Donald Trump "vindicated" his own campaign's concerns about the lame-duck president, it was still "awfully unsatisfying."
"I felt vindicated the day I announced my campaign, because I knew this was not an opinion. This was a fact. The fact was, he was not in a position to win. The fact was his approval numbers were historically low. The fact was his physical decline was real," Phillips said. "I regret that I wasn’t able to generate a platform to really wake people up to this nightmare into which we sleepwalked."
The former Minnesota Democrat – who was replaced by Congresswoman-elect Kelly Morrison (D-Minn.) — warned his party that it needs a "comprehensive turnaround"
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Click here to read Phillips' full interview in Politico.