Mr. Phillips, a well-liked moderate who captured a Republican district in 2018, expressed hope earlier in the week that Mr. Biden could serve as a bridge between the party’s factions. But he acknowledged on Friday that those chances had “been sadly diminished” in light of what he called the president’s “nothing-burger” of a visit to the Capitol. (Source)
Mr Phillips, the moderate Democrat–i.e., a Democrat who plays the insider game with donors and lobbyists, the kind who if they lose an election will wind up working as a lobbyist–assumed that Biden's serving "as a bridge" meanst whipping the Progressives into line. Isn't that what Obama and Rahm Emmanuel did in the run-up to the ACA?
He calls Biden's visit a 'nothing-burger' which tells you something about what a hack he is by virtue of his just using the term. It also speaks abundantly to his cluelessness because apparently it hasn't dawned on him yet that his kind of "moderation" is no longer mainstream in the Democratic Party.
Uncle Joe, to his credit and my surprise, understands the moment, certainly in a way that Obama did not twelve years ago. Biden's Capitol Hill visit wasn't a nothing burger; it was an announcement that he's not interested in business as usual nor is he interested in supporting the politics of oblivious hacks like Phillips.
The stakes are too high, and if "moderates" like Phillips don't get that, then hopefully it will soon occur to them that Biden's visit yesterday was hardly a nothing burger, but rather an announcement that the rules of the game have changed. The rules must change. Business as usual is the path to doomsday.
I'm not saying Biden will succeed. I hope he will, but if he doesn't, it will be because of the political nothing burgers like Phillips and the other moderates quoted in the article, who really do not understand the moment or the stakes, and who, whether out of spite or just plain stupidity, might find a way to obstruct Biden and his agenda.
Update 10/3/21: Just saw this column by Krugman who makes the same point:
…it makes a lot of sense to see Biden’s problems getting his plans across the finish line as being caused by the Rip Van Winkle caucus, Democrats who checked out intellectually a couple of decades ago and haven’t caught up with America as it now is.
Specifically, some Democrats still seem to believe that they can succeed economically and politically by being Republicans lite. It’s doubtful whether that was ever true. But it’s definitely not true now. . . .
So my plea to Democratic “moderates” is, please wake up. We’re not in 1999 anymore, and your political fortunes depend on helping Joe Biden govern effectively.
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