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The action from the DNC to suppress the publication of its internal post-election analysis on the last presidential race seems shocking yet to be expected. Opposed to unpleasant candor, the Democrats' governing body often functions more like a communications shop rather than a political organization devoted to building grassroots capacities capable of prevailing at the polls.

A Culture of Conformity

Hesitant to challenge the prevailing attitude demanding unity, the DNC has stayed within that legacy throughout this past year. Making public the findings might have shown that party leaders truly desire to promote honest conversation regarding the errors that paved the way for the former president to win re-election. Instead, the DNC is proceeding under the pretense that there are no lessons to be learned following the electoral catastrophe from the last cycle.

Our guiding principle: will this lead to victory? If the answer is no, it becomes a sideline issue from our fundamental goal," a justification which was presented to justify concealing the document.

Key Issues an Analysis Might Have Examined

Any valuable post-mortem of substance would not dodge key points of failure. These include:

• Electoral Alienation: The loss among a significant portion of the electorate who supported the party's candidate during the previous election proved pivotal in the narrowly decided recent race.
• The Choice to Run: The stubborn insistence of a party leader to stay in the race, and a last-minute step-aside, is seen by some as robbing the party's base of a competitive nomination process.
• Losing Touch With the Working-Class Base: While facing rising costs, the electoral effort allegedly ceding to elite contributors while failing to address the role of corporate greed.
• The Gaza Effect: The failure to adjust a stance concerning a ongoing war reportedly led to driving away key demographic groups, particularly among youth voters, Arab-Americans, Muslim voters.
• Losing Youth Support: Research demonstrates a significant decrease of votes for the candidate among voters aged 18-29.

A History of Evasion

The decision to withhold is consistent with a pattern of evading difficult realities. This mirrors a situation where nearly all elected Democrat in Washington went along with a sitting president's decision for seeking another term until a catastrophic televised debate forced a change.

Concurrently, a significant majority of Democratic voters had been continually telling pollsters of their opposition to that candidate to be the nominee.

Campaign Spending Questions

An honest autopsy would also probe matters about financial allocations, including what sums flowed to party strategists as well as media firms over the course of an electoral effort which expended a staggering war chest over a few months.

The Larger Issue

Fundamentally, the secrecy surrounding this report is symptomatic of a deference to party leaders who engineered a losing national race. The message to ordinary supporters – including millions of dedicated activists – appears to be that they cannot be trusted to know what the insiders have learned from hundreds of interviews compiled from conversations with insiders.

A party incapable to honestly assess its mistakes is unlikely to climb out of the rut that proved so helpful to the rival party.