The decision from the DNC to suppress the public viewing regarding its internal autopsy report concerning the 2024 election is shocking but entirely predictable. Opposed to unpleasant candor, the DNC operates more like a communications shop than an electoral entity focused on cultivating a volunteer base capable of prevailing at the polls.
A Climate of Conformity
Unwilling to challenge the prevailing attitude demanding unity, the DNC has remained within the Biden-Harris shadow throughout this past year. Releasing an official autopsy would have indicated that party leaders truly desire to promote honest conversation about the errors that enabled the former president to win re-election. Yet, the leadership is moving forward as if there's nothing to glean following the electoral catastrophe from the last cycle.
Our guiding principle: is this good for winning elections? Should the answer be negative, it becomes a sideline issue from the core mission," a rationale reportedly given for withholding the document.
Critical Problems an Analysis Would Have Addressed
An autopsy report worth its salt would confront certain uncomfortable matters. This encompasses:
- Voter Disengagement: Failing to retain among millions of voters that backed the party's candidate in 2020 was decisive in the close recent race.
- The Choice to Seek Re-election: The determined decision of a party leader to stay in the race, coupled with a very late step-aside, is viewed as denying the party's base the chance for a genuine choice.
- Failing the Working-Class Base: While facing economic anxiety, the electoral effort reportedly accommodating corporate donors' interests without successfully attempting to confront the impact of profit-seeking.
- A Foreign Policy Impact: The refusal to shift a policy position concerning a ongoing war allegedly caused alienating many voters, particularly among youth voters, Arab-Americans, and Muslim Americans.
- Losing Youth Allegiance: Research shows a huge decrease of support for the party among young voters.
A Record Avoiding Accountability
This refusal aligns with a pattern of sidestepping difficult realities. It echoes a dynamic where the vast majority of elected Democrat in Congress supported a sitting president's decision for seeking another term right up until a catastrophic televised debate forced a change.
Concurrently, large majorities of the electorate had been consistently telling surveyors that they did not want that candidate to be the nominee.
Financial Issues
An honest analysis might also investigate questions about financial allocations, including the amounts flowed to high-priced advisors as well as media firms during an electoral effort which expended an enormous amount over a few months.
The Underlying Issue
Ultimately, the suppression of the official autopsy points to a submission to party leaders who engineered a disastrous national race. The signal to ordinary supporters – including millions of small donors – is that they do not have a right to see what the insiders have learned from a report based on extensive interviews.
An organization unable to critically review where it went wrong will struggle to climb out of the pattern which was so helpful to their opponents.
