🔗 Share this article

This action by the DNC to withhold the release of its own autopsy report concerning the 2024 election seems stunning but to be expected. Resistant to unpleasant candor, the party's leadership apparatus operates closer to a PR firm rather than an electoral entity devoted to building a volunteer base capable of prevailing at the polls.

A Climate That Avoids Dissent

Hesitant to challenge the prevailing attitude demanding unity, the DNC has remained within the Biden-Harris shadow all through this past year. Making public an official autopsy could have demonstrated whether the leadership are interested to promote open debate about the missteps that paved the way for the former president to win re-election. Instead, the DNC is proceeding as if there are no lessons to glean from the electoral catastrophe from the last cycle.

Our guiding principle: will this lead to victory? If not, it becomes a sideline issue from what truly matters," a justification which was presented for withholding the report.

Key Issues an Analysis Would Have Explored

Any valuable post-mortem of substance would confront key points of failure. Among them are:

• Electoral Alienation: The loss among a significant portion of the electorate who voted for the party's candidate in 2020 was decisive in the close recent race.
• A Choice to Seek Re-election: The determined decision by the incumbent to stay in the race, and an extremely delayed step-aside, has been criticized as denying Democratic voters the chance for open primaries.
• Abandoning Everyday Americans: While facing inflation, the campaign reportedly ceding to elite contributors while failing to confront the impact of big business.
• The Foreign Policy Impact: An unwillingness to shift an approach regarding the situation in Gaza is cited as driving away many voters, notably among young people, Arab American communities, and Muslim Americans.
• Losing Youth Allegiance: Extensive evidence indicates a significant decline in support for the party among the youth electorate.

A History of Evasion

This refusal fits a recurring tendency of evading uncomfortable facts. This mirrors an episode where virtually every Democratic officeholder in Congress acquiesced to an incumbent's determination to running for re-election right up until a disastrous public debate performance forced a change.

At the same time, overwhelming numbers within the party's base had been consistently telling researchers of their opposition to the incumbent to be the nominee.

Financial Concerns

A substantive analysis might also examine questions about financial allocations, including what sums flowed to party strategists and media firms over the course of an electoral effort that burned through an enormous amount in a short period.

A Underlying Problem

At its core, the suppression surrounding this report points to a deference toward the established hierarchy who engineered a disastrous presidential campaign. The signal for the party's base – which includes millions of dedicated activists – appears to be that they cannot be trusted to see what the leadership claim to have learned based on a report compiled from feedback from all states.

A party incapable to honestly assess where it went wrong finds it difficult to break free from the cycle that ended up being so helpful to the winning candidate.