This move by the DNC to suppress the publication of its own post-election analysis on the last presidential race appears remarkable but entirely predictable. Opposed to frank assessments, the DNC often functions more like a communications shop rather than an electoral entity committed to building grassroots capacities for winning elections.
A Culture Resistant to Internal Critique
Unwilling to challenge the party establishment's culture demanding unity, the committee has stayed within the Biden-Harris shadow throughout this past year. Releasing such a report could have demonstrated that the leadership truly desire to encourage open debate about the missteps that paved the way for Donald Trump to win re-election. However, the committee is acting as if there is little to be learned from the tragic debacle of 2024.
"Here’s our North Star: will this lead to victory? If not, it becomes a sideline issue from our fundamental goal," a rationale reportedly given for withholding the analysis.
Key Issues a Report Would Have Explored
Any valuable post-mortem of substance would tackle head-on key points of failure. This encompasses:
- Electoral Disenchantment: Losing among millions of voters that backed the party's candidate during the previous election was decisive in the narrowly decided recent race.
- A Choice to Seek Re-election: The determined choice by a party leader to stay in the race, alongside a last-minute withdrawal, is seen by some as robbing Democratic voters of open primaries.
- Abandoning the Working-Class Base: Amid rising costs, the electoral effort is criticized for accommodating elite contributors while failing to address the role of big business.
- A Foreign Policy Effect: An unwillingness to adjust an approach on a ongoing war reportedly led to driving away many voters, especially with youth voters, Arab-Americans, and Muslim Americans.
- Losing Young Voter Support: Research indicates a huge drop-off in votes for the candidate from the youth electorate.
A History Avoiding Accountability
Choosing secrecy is consistent with a recurring tendency of sidestepping difficult realities. It echoes a situation in which nearly all elected Democrat in Congress acquiesced to an incumbent's decision for seeking another term until a poor televised debate forced a reversal.
At the same time, overwhelming numbers within the party's base were continually telling pollsters that they did not want that candidate to seek re-election.
Campaign Spending Concerns
A substantive autopsy would also probe matters regarding where money went, such as how much money flowed to insider consultants as well as media firms during a campaign that burned through an enormous war chest during the general election.
A Larger Problem
Fundamentally, the secrecy regarding the analysis points to a submission to the established hierarchy responsible for a losing electoral effort. The implication to rank-and-file members – including millions of loyal volunteers – is that they do not be trusted to understand the lessons the insiders claim to have learned from a report based on conversations with insiders.
A party incapable to publicly examine its mistakes will struggle to climb out of the rut that proved so beneficial to the winning candidate.
