The decision by the DNC to suppress the publication of its own post-election analysis concerning the last presidential race seems stunning but entirely predictable. Averse to hard truths, the party's leadership apparatus operates more like a publicity machine than an electoral entity focused on cultivating a volunteer base to secure victories.
An Environment That Avoids Dissent
Unwilling to break with the prevailing attitude demanding unity, the DNC has remained under that legacy all through this past year. Making public such a report might have shown whether party leaders are interested to encourage open debate regarding the errors that paved the way for Donald Trump to become president again. However, the committee is acting under the pretense that there is little to glean from the electoral catastrophe from the last cycle.
The top priority: is this good for winning elections? If the answer is no, it becomes a sideline issue from our fundamental goal," a rationale which was presented to justify concealing the analysis.
Major Failures a Report Could Have Examined
Any valuable post-mortem of substance would confront key points of failure. These include:
- Voter Alienation: Failing to retain of a significant portion of the electorate that backed the party's candidate in 2020 proved pivotal during the tight recent race.
- The Choice to Seek Re-election: The unwavering insistence of the incumbent to run again, coupled with an extremely delayed exit, has been criticized as robbing Democratic voters the chance for a competitive nomination process.
- Abandoning Core Democratic Voters: While facing inflation, the electoral effort allegedly accommodating powerful financial backers while failing to address the role of big business.
- A Gaza Impact: The failure to reconsider an approach regarding a ongoing war allegedly caused driving away key demographic groups, especially among young people, Arab American communities, Muslim voters.
- Losing Youth Support: Extensive evidence shows a huge decline in votes for the candidate among young voters.
A Record of Evasion
The decision to withhold is consistent with a longstanding habit of evading difficult realities. It recalls a situation in which nearly all elected Democrat in Congress supported an incumbent's insistence on seeking another term until a disastrous public debate performance forced a change.
At the same time, overwhelming numbers of the electorate had been repeatedly informing researchers that they did not want the incumbent to run again.
Campaign Spending Concerns
A thorough autopsy might also investigate questions about campaign spending, such as what sums flowed to insider consultants as well as advertising contractors over the course of a campaign which expended a colossal amount during the general election.
A Larger Implication
Fundamentally, the secrecy of the official autopsy points to a submission to the existing power structure who engineered a losing electoral effort. The implication to the party's base – which includes countless small donors – appears to be that they cannot have a right to see what the leadership say they discovered based on hundreds of interviews compiled from conversations with insiders.
A party unwilling to honestly assess where it went wrong will struggle to climb out of the pattern which was so beneficial to their opponents.
