An unpublished chapter in the U.S. Democrats’ “autopsy” report on the party’s loss to Trump in the last presidential election made its way to The New York Times, as Brad Reed reports.
Inside the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Aug. 19, 2024. (Chsdrummajor07 /Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 4.0)
By Brad Reed
Common Dreams
The New York Times has published what it described as a “missing chapter” of the Democratic National Committee’s widely criticized “autopsy” of the 2024 presidential election.
The chapter, titled “What Happened in 2024” and provided to the Times by Democratic strategist Paul Rivera, offers criticisms of party consultants who are “self-enriching” and out of touch with the concerns of ordinary voters.
Specifically, the chapter questions whether Democratic politicians and operatives have a grasp on the economic realities facing most Americans, while calling for “a fundamental re-evaluation” of whether Democrats “really understand the wants and needs of voters.”
The chapter states:
“An emerging critique of Democratic decision-making is there are too many people who have become generationally wealthy off politics and drive too much of the decision-making within the ecosystem. This is deeply frustrating to many … who want to try a different set of politics but keep banging their heads up against a system proven to be inflexible and self-enriching.”
The chapter adds that “many of the people who worked at the highest levels of the party” are “financially secure,” and thus potentially insulated “from the realities many Americans were encountering in their lives.”
[See: Hiding Why Democrats Lost to Boost Harris]
In an interview with the Times, Rivera claimed that he personally handed the missing chapter to DNC Chair Ken Martin in a three-ring binder earlier this year.
DNC Chair Ken Martin in 2019. (Marc Nozell /Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 2.0)
Rivera said he had no specific insight into why the chapter was not included with the report that the DNC released in May.
“Whether that was a conscious decision on their part to bury the section for the purposes of hiding a paragraph, I don’t know,” the Democratic strategist told the Times. “That’s a ‘them’ question. What I can tell you is they had it, and they made a decision not to release it.”
Martin, however, flatly denied that Rivera had ever personally handed him the chapter.
“This alleged report section was not in any binder I reviewed,” said Martin in a written statement given to the Times. “If we had this in May, we would have released it with the rest of the report.”
Martin also called it ridiculous to suggest that he would have suppressed a section of the final DNC report to avoid offending the party’s consultant class.
“If I or the DNC had report materials that went after self-enriching consultants, we absolutely would have included them,” Martin insisted, noting his own past promises “to hold the consultant-industrial complex accountable and ensure the party only pays for work that actually helps us win.”
The Times’ report noted that the DNC’s autopsy featured a section titled “What Happened” that was listed as “pending” on the grounds that it “was not provided by author.”
Brad Reed is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
The views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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Two words– “Hillary” and “AIPAC.”
There wasn’t much of a story there, but…What great comments from such a savvy readership!
It almost seems as though a “Deal” was made by Trump with big finance/ MIC that he would get their backing in exchange for a promise to go to war against Iran.
Playing their part, Dem bigwigs then removed the incumbent Biden, who might have stood a chance, and put up a two-clown ticket that never stood a chance against the “anti-war” populist.
Less than five months into office, Trump, egomaniac and loyal pup, laid down “Midnight Hammer”. Didn’t work, but does it ever?
Food for thought…the Dems rolled over in ‘24, and played dead. Far as I’m concerned, they are.
I was initially going to conclude that the Dems were living a corollary to the Radical Reich’s snappy trope conveying its utter contempt of education: “If you can’t DO it … then manage it!”
But after their blaming election disasters on their consultants for the umpteenth time, we must conclude about the DNC/Dem bigwigs …
at least teachers DO teach.
I don’t think it really matters whether this chapter was included in the DNC’s post-mortem analysis of the 2024 campaign. Anyone can see that the Democratic Party, at the national level, is utterly out-of-touch with the needs and interests of ordinary citizens.
The DNC has been captured by the wealthy lap-top class of technology investors, who could hardly care less about people who work with their hands. They support a certain set of liberal/progressivist ideas, but only such ideas as are compatible with corporate capitalism. For example, Diversity/Equality/Inclusion is supported in corporate hiring, because it just means adding a few more desks to the already-swollen Human Resources office.
When working people are categorized as ‘human resources’, you know right away that employees will be treated as replaceable parts of a machine. And soon to be widely replaced by AI, which is angling to take over the HR space.
The working class is effectively disenfranchised in America in the absence of an organized labor movement. And labor organization is severely hampered by a legal system tilted heavily toward the wealthy capitalist class.
What is a ‘resource’? It is a commodity to be exploited for profit. So what does that tell us when people say that “children are our most valuable resource”?
A two-headed snake pushing capitalism…
Not capitalism – corporatism, which has replaced capitalism just as capitalism replaced mercantilism.
The Ds focus solely on maximizing corruption.
Even in this supposedly critical article about the DNC, no mention of genocide, Gaza, Palestine.
Sorry, even if my vote for you was the crucial one for getting medicare for all US-ians, I will never vote for genocide.
“I will never vote for genocide.” Same. Another missing item is identity politics. Evan Barker, who was a paid DNC operative, noted through her daily interactions with the DNC it’s disdain for white men.
Nyah, I feel the same. The Zionists have acquired controlling leverage over both our political parties. That is why we need a third party….TO EXPRESSLY OPPOSE ZIONISM both within and without our government. This alternative party should stand, first and foremost, for the human rights of all Americans…and where ever possible, this position should direct our foremost foreign policy. This new party could recruit from both the Right and Left if it advocates for a “limited free enterprise” economy. Such a movement will take time to succeed….but it is the only course for a sustainable future.
This tree will take years to grow…..so we must plant it now. (JFK)
It worked for the RS, founded as an anti-slavery party. The voters were fed up with slavery and the parties would do nothing about it. So the RS formed in 1854. In six years they were elected and assumed power.
Good point Patrick. Not to nit-pick but by “RS” you do mean “RP” (Republican Party)…right?
Zionism is fast becoming as great a scourge on our national morality as slavery was in 1854. Let us hope the majority of Americans perceive it that way….and act with all haste to peacefully isolate and eliminate it.
My View is what NYAH said in the above.
D party chairman Martin promises the party “will hold the consultant class responsible.” Sounds like just another deflection. In the new part: “insulated from the realities most Americans were encountering…” “a system proved to be inflexible…” In other words, it’s NOT just consultants. Even if it were, why is the party so out of touch with us the majority working class, once its main base of support, as to not understand why we’re angry at their brand?
The D party and its PMC loyalists tried to deflect blame for the 2024 election onto “stupid” voters. Not a smart way to win back voters. Nor is never noticing 4 decades of Rust Belt suffering and deaths of despair. We mere workers aren’t supposed to know outsourcing manufacturing was a deliberate econ policy. We’re supposed to be okay the Ds bailed out Wall St. after ’08 yet millions of us lost jobs, pensions, homes but got nothing because trickle down will fix everything. Yeah. Any day now.
One D consultant, James Carville, is urging the D party to purge the Dem Socialists, claiming they value Lenin more than MLK and will tarnish the party name. Not only disgusting McCarthyism, it’s laughable. Yes, many DSers are armchair theorists, but contrast that with Mamdani, who’s out there in the streets of NYC. Consider the behavior of the status quo party Ds during the mayor race when they allied with the Rs, even getting an endorsement for Cuomo from Trump. Wanna bet Martin and the D party apparatchiks won’t continue business as usual? Emphasis on ‘business’ since as neolibs they’re okay with this grossly unfair econopathy.
It simply was a three religiously motivated strikes by the greatest western long lasting empire of all for a Supreme Court deal before nomination as well as anticipated feminist. Then back to a safe refuge and then against the safe refuge when it suddenly turned feminist all over again. Triangulations going back to the Vietnam and Cuba era as well as Cold War inquisitions once WWII advanced rather than strangled communist states.
DNC to Court: We Are a Private Corporation With No Obligation to Follow Our Rules
hxxps://ivn.us/posts/dnc-to-court-we-are-a-private-corporation-with-no-obligation-to-follow-our-rules
We saw the DNC operate in 2016 against Bernie Sanders during the year of populism. Instead of backing a populist to win the presidency, they put forth the WORST candidate ever to take on Trump.
Hillary Clinton was an establishment insider that voters hated. It was a train wreck in the making. As a Julian Assange supporter, I knew all about the faux hacking story. Julian all but told us it was a leak – not a hack. All one had to do was read about the DNC made up all kind of lies and paid big dollars to consultants who also lied.
I lost all support for the DNC from that point on. They did the exact same thing with Kamala Harris. Her allegiance to Israel and their genocide turned off voters. She should have distanced herself from Biden. Instead, she promised to not change anything. LOL
The DNC is dead and so is their machine politics which sold out to Wall Street in the 90s.
I live and vote in Ken Martin’s Minnesota. I don’t believe that he didn’t know or isn’t part of the consultant class.
Democrats, liberals, mainstream commentators, and Chamber of Commerce Republicans are either ignorant of or give short shrift to the immigration issue. It was immigration that put Trump in the White House in 2016, and less so, but also in 2024.
Many just have a blind spot, an inability to grasp how salient this issue is in Peoria for working U.S. citizens of all colors.
It’s simultaneously absolutely comical and tragic that some folks out there actually think we could get Medicare-for-All passed sans addressing our out-0f-control immigration problem!
We have very intelligent U.S. citizens in H1-B fields who are drowning in student loan debt and also mired in unemployment for chrissakes!
Either the pwogwessive left addresses this, or it’s done as a movement, period, done.
Don’t confuse the progressive left with anybody influential in the Republocratic Party.
There really is no Democratic Party anymore. There’s a cult that is entrenched within the imperial machine that pretends to be working against the machine. That’s the role they play in the electoral follies. As long as they’re tied to Wall Street interests, don’t expect any revolutionary policies that help the 99% to be forthcoming. Vote Independent, third party, or don’t vote.
“Don’t vote” is one of the major reasons we have Donald Trump, utterly corrupt to the core, cares only about himself and plastering his name in gold on everything in sight, zero empathy for anyone else outside his orbit of ultra rich narcissists, loyal friend to the worst dictators and mass murderers, focused on tweeting about this or that actress at 2 am, and champion at appointing absolutely unqualified hacks to very important government positions. Democrats, with all of their faults, do better than this. There IS a choice. Vote.
Wasn’t it the DNC that made sure that Bernie Sanders would not be nominated for the Presidency? And blocking Sanders meant that those issues that most negatively affect Americans were not to be forcefully addressed,
Its an entirely different party than the one I grew up under the New Deal.
Sanders lost the Democratic primary race. Nothing was rigged against him, he simply did not get the votes. And please try to remember that Sanders is not a member of the Democratic Party; he was running as an outsider. Why would anyone expect the DNC provide primary support to an outsider candidate?
Aside from all that, as I personally dislike the primary process, Sanders had no real chance of winning the presidential race. In fact, the Republicans avoided criticizing him during the primary campaign because he was their preferred choice as the Democratic opponent. The Republicans had a thick file of attack-ad material on Sanders and were just waiting to use it during the presidential race. Meanwhile, the Republicans rained all sort of slander onto the Clinton primary campaign because Hillary was a strong candidate.
And yes, Hillary Clinton is a bloodthirsty war-hawk and would have been just as horrible as Trump on the foreign policy side of things.
Re “Why would anyone expect the DNC provide primary support to an outsider candidate (Sanders)?”
In 2016 anyway, the first miserable DNC disaster re Trump, it was because Sanders was getting 30,000 people turning out at his appearances. This while his opponent*** was getting $30,000 per plate from 100 people at meet-and-greet dinners.
*** This was, of course, Ms Clinton, the second-least popular presidential hopeful in the history of such statistics. She was ultimately nominated to face Trump, the LEAST popular hopeful ever. This while Sanders, the MOST popular ever, was “edged out” of the nomination.
He caucuses with Dems and I suspect you don’t take issue with this when the topic is an issue that fits your narrative.
You will never be able to convince me that Clyburn, Obama and HRC didn’t step in to quash his success in 2016. That and the DNC basically saying they’d do what they wanted even if the voters didn’t like it speaks volumes to me.