Facing intense internal pressure, DNC releases postelection autopsy that criticizes Kamala Harris

https://apnews.com/article/democratic-national-committee-autopsy-2024-ken-martin-a4f67256b4c56ba076aece23c22728ad

NEW YORK (AP) — Kamala Harris “wrote off rural America” during the 2024 presidential campaign and failed to attack Donald Trump with sufficient “negative firepower,” according to a long-awaited post-election autopsy released on Thursday by the Democratic National Committee.

The committee’s chair, Ken Martin, shared the 192-page report only after facing intense internal pressure from frustrated Democratic operatives concerned with his leadership. Martin had originally promised to release the autopsy, only to keep it under wraps for months because he was concerned it would be a distraction ahead of the midterms as Democrats mobilize to take back control of Congress.

47 points · 39 comments · view on lemmy.world

39 Comments

etherphon@piefed.world · 18 pts · 120d (33 replies)
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GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 119d

1000003952

UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 119d (2 replies)

It would have been nice if everyone showed up to vote too

Democrats dismantled one of the most effective GOTV operations in the Midwest because of an obvious psyop by a college drop out.

That was the beginning of a long and miserable series of defeats at every level of government for the next 18 years.

Gotta wonder what you are supposed to think about a party that won't fight for the VRA, won't fight for the courts, won't fight for DC statehood, and won't fight for the wildly popular anti-war and pro-health care policies that they campaigned on.

At the very fucking least, Biden could have delivered on a prosecution of the Trump administration, rather than telling his voters that Trump had done nothing illegal.

etherphon@piefed.world · 6 pts · 119d (1 reply)
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UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 119d

we had a choice put before us

We did not. Primaries were cancelled and the general was rigged.

You can bring all kinds of other conjecture

Nothing about this is conjecture. Dems dismantled the machinery that moved people to the polls. Then they lost. Republicans did the opposite and won.

Blaming the little old grandma whose mail in ballot never arrived, the freshly minted teenager who was told they couldn't vote on their college campus, and the perennial Dem whose name got purged from the voter rolls - nevermind the million plus voters in DC who have never been enfranchised in the legislature - that they failed to elect a candidate neck deep up Liz Cheney's asshole because they're bad people isn't going to save your party next election any more than it did last time

CaptMurica@beehaw.org · 4 pts · 119d (28 replies)

Blaming voters for not lining up behind their anointed cop is why the Democrats will keep losing.

AceOnTrack@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 119d (2 replies)

There were two possible choices in the American election

  1. vote for Kamala
  2. be an absolute idiot

Which one are you?

CaptMurica@beehaw.org · 0 pts · 119d (1 reply)

Lol, fuck all the way fucking off, Vote Blue moron.

AceOnTrack@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 118d

Yeah, that's what I thought.

You failed the basic 2024 IQ test.

baronvonj@piefed.social · 1 pts · 119d (24 replies)

The blame doesn't fall wholly on the one side or the other, here. Between the voters, nominees, campaign runners, and the party itself every had something they needed to do to win. Failures were made among all groups and it's valid to point all of them out.

fodor@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 119d (1 reply)
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baronvonj@piefed.social · 1 pts · 119d

that's a fair point.

CaptMurica@beehaw.org · 2 pts · 119d (15 replies)

My vote is earned, Democrats couldn’t be bothered and Top Cop asserted she would not be changing Biden’s course if she won. The blame is ALL on the Democrats.

baronvonj@piefed.social · 3 pts · 119d (14 replies)

One of the candidates on the ballot will be sworn into office whether you vote or not. So regardless if you're voting for someone or against someone, it's foolish to silence your only voice in the selection process.

wyldrstallyns@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 119d (6 replies)

With the shamefully antiquated Electoral College still in place, that's an interesting push. Of course, that's assuming there is an election. 😶‍🌫️

baronvonj@piefed.social · 2 pts · 119d (5 replies)

At present I believe the only way to get past the EC is with National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. And the only way to get that is to elect state legislators who will support adopting in. The only way to get them on the general election ballot to be elected is to vote for them in the primary. And since our current reality is that over 99% of state and federal legislators are Democratic or Republican, I believe we can only get those people who support electoral reform elected by nominating them in either the Democratic or Republican primary. It's an actionable thing that we can all do today that doesn't require any systemic reform to have already taken place and it's backed by observable reality. Do you have an alternate suggestion?

wyldrstallyns@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 119d

I genuinely wish I did, but I'm equipped with a turd paddle, same as my fellow citizens. ✊🏼

CaptMurica@beehaw.org · -1 pts · 119d (6 replies)

Who says I didn’t vote? I have and will continue to vote Green as both GOP and Dems had loudly committed to continuing the genocide. Which was absolutely a dealbreaker for many, many voters.

baronvonj@piefed.social · 2 pts · 119d (4 replies)

Voting 3rd party at the state and federal level in a district without some form of RCV or an encumbent 3rd party representative is pretty much a counter-productive to giving greater political power to your preferred end of the political spectrum. It's just lowering the number of votes the opposing end of the spectrum needs to win because of our first-past-the-post plurality winner-takes-all system. Yes, I know it's a corrupt system working as designed by those in power. Quoting myself from another thread where included sources for all this:

We won't get rid of the two-party system by voting for losing 3rd party candidates. At present there are a grand total of 3 (out of 535) federal legislators who are not either Democratic or Republican. Bernie Sanders ran in the Democratic primary for Senate in 2008, winning the nomination but then declining it to run as an Independent. Kevin Kiley was first elected as a Republican and then declared as Independent after several years in office. In all state legislatures combined, there are a total of 6 state senators and 22 state representatives out of 7,578 total state legislative seats. There hasn't been a single electoral college vote for a presidential 3rd party candidate sine 1968, and Perot won 19% of the national popular vote in 1992! Unless you already live in a district with ranked choice voting or with an independent elected official, the odds of displacing either of the major parties is effectively zero. So your best opportunity for reform is still to vote for such candidates at the state level in the major party primary.

For county and below, have at it. If your state/federal rep is already 3rd party or independent and not getting trounced in public approval, keep them. If your district has RCV, definitely support 3rd party. but in the other 99.5% of districts, voting Green at state and federal level is just making easier for a Republican to win.

CaptMurica@beehaw.org · 0 pts · 119d

Cry harder or push your shit ass party to earn some fucking votes because none of what you wrote means a damned thing.

AceOnTrack@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 118d

Pissing away your vote clearly improved the situation in Gaza.

MagicShel@lemmy.zip · -1 pts · 119d (5 replies)

The voters are basically the same every election. Yeah they evolve over time but not quickly. You can't blame populace for being exactly who they are.

They weren't enthusiastic about Kamala, and if you ask me it has everything to do with the economy and approximately fuck all to do with anything else. But you can't fault the people any more than you can fault the tide when there is a flood.

baronvonj@piefed.social · 3 pts · 119d (4 replies)

I can absolutely fault every single person who didn't vote in either the primary or the general for giving up their voice. Voting is the only speech that matters in respect to who is sworn into office. If you don't speak up when it counts then I will absolutely call you out for complaining about the result.

MagicShel@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 119d (1 reply)

You either meet people where they are, you find a strategy to move the people, or you lose. None of that is on the people. Your blame changes nothing. It's wishful thinking — you go into the election with the voters you have, not the voters you wish you had.

baronvonj@piefed.social · 3 pts · 119d

And voters go into the election with the nominees they have, not the nominees they wish they had. And to be clear, people who skip an election because the equate that to voting for "none of the above" are non-voters in that election. The reality we have is that [for over 99% of the state and federal legislative offices and for the presidency] either the Democratic or the Republican nominee will win that election regardless of how many people don't vote or why they chose not to. Not voting lowers the number of votes needed for the other side of the political spectrum to win. It's the last chance for the voting-eligible public to effect the outcome of that election, and to skip it and silence themselves and then complain about the outcome deserves being confronted over. And again, pointing this out does not excuse the failure of Kamala/Walz and their campaign runners and the DNC of their faults. All of them have blame here.

kreskin@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 119d (1 reply)

I can absolutely fault every single person who didn’t vote in either the primary or the general for giving up their voice.

Oh no, baronvonj on lemmy "blames" me for Kamala and the DNC shitting the bed and running a candidate who wouldnt deviate from a platform with underwater approval rates and wildly illegal genocide support.

eyeroll

/s

On a more serious note, Ken Martin is an idiot and needs to be thrown bodily from the party.

baronvonj@piefed.social · 2 pts · 119d

Oh no, baronvonj on lemmy “blames” me for Kamala and the DNC shitting the bed and running a candidate

No, that's a strawman, I never blamed non-voters for Kamala's campaign or the DNC. I blame them for not voting because that made it easier for Trump to win, by lowering the number of votes he needed to do so. I do blame Kamala for her policies and her campaign managers for their campaign. But I accept that this is real life with real consequences and come election day it was either going to be Trump or Kamala announced as the winner regardless of those things, so I voted against Trump.

EpeeGnome@feddit.online · 12 pts · 119d

Who could have imagined that refusing to release information you publicly promised to release would also be a distraction?

reddig33@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 120d (2 replies)
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Thunderbird4@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 119d

There we go. If only she went after more Republican voters and abandoned trans people. Then she would have cinched it.

I’m thinking the reason he dragged his heels releasing it is that it proves that the current DNC leadership still hasn’t learned anything and has no plans to improve.

UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 119d

It was all Kamala’s fault. 🙄

She makes an excellent fall girl. But that's always been her job within the party. Gotta wonder how a candidate this unqualified made it to California AG, nevermind Presidential nominee.

At some point, she's responsible for her own ambition.

anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 119d

This is bad, but for completely unexpected reasons

I thought they withheld it because it identified issues with the democratic platform that would put them at odds with donors, but instead it's a half-assed opinion piece scratched out on toilet paper and riddled with errors and no evidence to speak of

Third-Way and other neo-liberal rags are claiming victory over this pile of shit - I'm happy to let them roll around in it by themselves

homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 119d (3 replies)

Trump’s attack on Harris’ transgender policies were cited as a key contrast.

Specifically, the report suggested the Democratic nominee was “boxed” in by the Trump campaign’s “very effective” ad that highlighted Harris’ previous statement of support for taxpayer-funded gender-affirming surgeries for prison inmates. 

Democratic pollsters believed that “if the Vice President would not change her position – and she did not – then there was nothing which would have worked as a response,” the report said.

Blibly@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 119d (2 replies)

You just copy-pasting this shit all over eh? I see you, weirdo.

homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 119d (1 reply)

Yeah in both articles. Lookout! I'm an antiunpropagandistist. Oh the humanity

Blibly@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 119d

🤡