This decision by the DNC to suppress the public viewing of its internal post-election analysis concerning the last presidential race appears stunning yet not surprising. Averse to frank assessments, the DNC behaves more like a communications shop than an electoral entity committed to cultivating grassroots capacities for winning elections.
A Culture of Conformity
Hesitant to challenge the party establishment's culture of conformity, the DNC has stayed within the Biden-Harris shadow all through this past year. Publishing the findings would have indicated whether the leadership are interested to promote open debate about the strategic failures that enabled Donald Trump to win re-election. Instead, the leadership is moving forward under the pretense that there's nothing to glean following the electoral catastrophe from the last cycle.
"Here’s our North Star: is this good for winning elections? If not, it’s a distraction from our fundamental goal," an explanation which was presented to justify concealing the analysis.
Major Failures an Analysis Would Have Addressed
An autopsy report worth its salt would tackle head-on a series of difficult topics. These include:
- Electoral Disenchantment: The loss of millions of voters who voted for the party's candidate during the previous election became a critical factor in the close recent race.
- A Choice to Run: The stubborn decision of the incumbent to run again, alongside a last-minute withdrawal, is viewed as robbing the party's base of a competitive nomination process.
- Losing Touch With Everyday Americans: While facing economic anxiety, the electoral effort is criticized for accommodating corporate donors' interests and not managing to address the role of corporate greed.
- A Gaza Effect: The refusal to reconsider an approach concerning a ongoing war allegedly caused losing significant blocs, especially among young people, Arab-Americans, Muslim voters.
- Eroding Youth Allegiance: Research indicates a major decline in votes for the candidate among the youth electorate.
A Record Shunning Scrutiny
This refusal is consistent with a longstanding habit to avoid uncomfortable facts. This mirrors a dynamic in which nearly all Democratic officeholder in Congress supported a sitting president's determination to seeking another term right up until a poor campaign event compelled a change.
Concurrently, overwhelming numbers of Democratic voters had been continually telling surveyors that they did not want that candidate to run again.
Financial Issues
An honest report might also probe issues about financial allocations, such as how much money flowed to insider consultants and advertising contractors over the course of a campaign that burned through a staggering amount in a short period.
A Larger Implication
At its core, the suppression of the official autopsy is symptomatic of a deference toward the established hierarchy who engineered a losing presidential campaign. The signal to rank-and-file members – including countless dedicated activists – appears to be that they cannot have a right to see the lessons the insiders claim to have learned from a report drawing from conversations with insiders.
A party unable to honestly assess where it went wrong will struggle to break free from the pattern which was so beneficial to the rival party.
