Dean Phillips Slams Party For Prioritizing ‘Tenure Over Talent, Identity Politics Over Pragmatic Problem Solving’

Retiring Democratic Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips flayed his political party for lacking leadership and having a lopsided focus on political longevity and identity politics in a Saturday exit interview with Politico.

Phillips — who until Saturday represented his state’s 3rd District — bared his frustrations in the interview. “Right now, we are totally devoid of leadership. We are rudderless. I don’t know which Democratic Party member my colleagues would point to as the leader, de facto leader, and absent that, I don’t see much, frankly, happening,” he told Politico.

“I think it’s ironic that the Republican Party is now representing America’s working class,” he added. “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.”

Dem Rep. Dean Phillips is leaving Congress – and he has some parting words for his “rudderless” party. https://t.co/8RRboZKHUX

— POLITICO (@politico) December 28, 2024

Democrats looking to win during the midterms in 2026 and the presidential elections in 2028 should find that it’s “not that hard” and “not rocket science,” Phillips told Politico.

“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. […] It’s as simple as that, but it takes leadership,” he said.

Phillips also told Politico that the emergence of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries signaled a “generational change” from the leadership of House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi.

Phillips delivered his farewell address Dec. 16, describing himself as an optimist whose mission “to restore commonsense and a home for the exhausted majority of center-left and center-right Americans is just beginning.”

As I bid farewell to Congress today, I depart more deeply in love with my country and more deeply disgusted by the dysfunction of our government.

We can and must do better, and my mission to awaken America’s exhausted majority and make common sense cool again is just beginning. pic.twitter.com/QQ3qcmGqEv

— Dean Phillips (@deanbphillips) December 17, 2024

Phillips, opting back in 2023 not to seek reelection in 2024, ran an improbable campaign against President Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential ticket but ended his campaign in March 2024.

Phillips was the first Democrat to call for Biden to step aside after Biden’s widely panned performance at the June 27 presidential debate, ABC News reported. He told the outlet that he called on Pelosi, late Democratic California Sen. Diane Feinstein, late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Biden to “pass the torch” as soon as he entered Congress in 2019. “I’ve been saying this for quite a while,” he added. (RELATED: Scott Jennings Says Biden Will ‘Leave Office In Disgrace’ After ‘Disastrous’ 4 Years In White House)

Phillips’s criticism of his party echoed recent comments of fellow retiring lawmaker, Democratic New Hampshire Rep. Annie Kuster. “I think our party needs to reflect on how it felt to an entire generation of younger people that for a pretty long time, the face of our party has been octogenarians,” Kuster told the Washington, D.C.-based outlet Roll Call.

Democratic-affiliated Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont also blamed Vice President Kamala Harris’s loss in the 2024 presidential election to Donald Trump on the Democratic Party’s abandonment of the working class.

Phillips is a Gold Star son and a self-described “[c]ommon sense aficionado.” Rated one of the most bipartisan lawmakers, he worked with Texas Republican Chip Roy on the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act that then-President Trump signed into law to save small American businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic.