The Democrats couldn’t complete their term paper, but handed it in anyway because too many people were wondering what had become of it.
Under pressure, the DNC finally released its autopsy of the 2024 election, after rampant speculation about what it contained and why it hadn’t yet been made public.
It turns out that it’s a thoroughly unimpressive, unfinished document that, in the sheer incompetence in its drafting and handling, says more about the low state of the current Democratic Party than any of its analysis.
DNC Chairman Ken Martin maintains he delayed so long because he didn’t want to create a distraction by releasing a poorly done report, which sounds like a typical Washington excuse for hiding something.
Except it wasn’t.
Once everyone saw the report, they realized Martin was right about the embarrassingly poor handiwork of his own outfit.
Lame disclaimer
At the start, the autopsy contains a disclaimer that “the DNC was not provided with the underlying sourcing, interviews, or supporting data for many of the assertions contained herein and therefore cannot independently verify the claims presented.”
The Democrats would have been better off going with ChatGPT.
That said, the report acknowledges that Democrats are out of touch and too dependent on the Republicans making poor candidate choices (something the GOP may be about to do again in its Texas Senate primary with the scandal-plagued Ken Paxton).
It notes how Trump’s they/them ad hitting Kamala Harris on trans issues was devastating and unanswerable.
It recognizes that Harris didn’t do enough to separate herself from Biden and make an affirmative case for herself rather than relying on voters supposedly considering Trump unacceptable.
On the other hand, it fails to grapple with the issues of inflation and immigration (except to complain about Harris being given a role with some responsibility over the border).
These were the two biggest substantive issues in the election, while the autopsy also whiffs on Biden’s age and his catastrophic poor judgment in trying to run for re-election.
Although our expectations for honesty in such documents shouldn’t be too high. What was the report going to say?
That Democrats disgraced themselves by pretending that Biden was fit for a second term, and only shifted course when he got exposed in the first debate, and then had no alternative but to turn to a charmless non-entity as a last-minute substitute?
Poor appraisals
The history of such party appraisals isn’t a good one.
Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016 by taking the recommendations of the GOP autopsy after its 2012 election defeat and basically doing the opposite.
Democrats may be rudderless and increasingly extreme, but that doesn’t mean they won’t have a good election night this coming November.
Usually, a party that has just lost the White House rises or falls in the midterms based on the incumbent president’s job approval, rather than its own political creativity or inherent appeal.
As for winning the White House, that typically depends on nominating someone who is charismatic and fresh, who has an unexpected approach to politics, and who develops a new coalition — think Barack Obama in 2008, or Donald Trump in 2016.
None of this comes about by having a political strategist talk to a bunch of people about the immediate past election and write a long report about it.
Needless to say, Democrats should be grateful that the stakes of their autopsy are so low — since they couldn’t even bring themselves to finish it.
X: @RichLowry
