The action by the Democratic National Committee to suppress the release of its own autopsy report concerning the 2024 election is shocking yet not surprising. Opposed to unpleasant candor, the Democrats' governing body often functions more like a communications shop rather than a political organization focused on cultivating grassroots capacities to secure victories.
A Climate of Conformity
Reluctant to challenge the party establishment's culture of conformity, the DNC has remained under the Biden-Harris shadow throughout this past year. Making public an official autopsy might have shown that the leadership truly desire to foster open debate regarding the errors that enabled the former president to win re-election. Instead, the DNC is proceeding under the pretense that there are no lessons to be learned following the electoral catastrophe from the last cycle.
"Here’s our North Star: does this help us win? If the answer is no, it becomes a sideline issue from what truly matters," an explanation which was presented to justify concealing the report.
Major Failures a Report Might Have Addressed
An autopsy report worth its salt would not dodge certain uncomfortable matters. This encompasses:
- Electoral Disengagement: Losing of a significant portion of the electorate who voted for the party's candidate in 2020 was decisive in the narrowly decided recent race.
- The Choice to Run: The determined choice of a party leader to run again, and a last-minute step-aside, has been criticized as denying Democratic voters of a genuine choice.
- Losing Touch With the Working-Class Base: Amid inflation, the campaign allegedly bowing to elite contributors and not managing to confront the role of profit-seeking.
- The Gaza Impact: The refusal to reconsider a stance concerning a ongoing war is cited as losing key demographic groups, notably with youth voters, Arab American communities, and Muslim Americans.
- A Decline in Young Voter Allegiance: Polling data indicates a significant drop-off in votes for the candidate from the youth electorate.
A Pattern Shunning Scrutiny
Choosing secrecy aligns with a pattern to avoid difficult realities. This mirrors an episode in which nearly all elected Democrat in Congress supported an incumbent's determination to running for re-election until a disastrous campaign event forced a change.
Meanwhile, a significant majority of the electorate had been repeatedly informing researchers of their opposition to the incumbent to run again.
Financial Issues
A substantive autopsy would also investigate issues regarding financial allocations, including what sums were directed to high-priced advisors and media firms over the course of an electoral effort which expended an enormous amount in a short period.
The Larger Problem
At its core, the secrecy surrounding this report points to an allegiance to the existing power structure who engineered a losing presidential campaign. The signal to ordinary supporters – which includes millions of small donors – is that they cannot have a right to know the lessons party chiefs say they discovered based on a report compiled from extensive interviews.
An organization unable to honestly assess its own failings is unlikely to break free from the rut that proved so beneficial to their opponents.
