{"id":45676,"date":"2025-12-18T14:25:32","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T22:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=45676"},"modified":"2025-12-18T14:25:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T22:25:33","slug":"feckless-ken-martin-rebuked-over-dnc-decision-to-bury-autopsy-of-2024-election-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/12\/18\/feckless-ken-martin-rebuked-over-dnc-decision-to-bury-autopsy-of-2024-election-disaster\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Feckless\u2019 Ken Martin Rebuked Over DNC Decision to Bury Autopsy of 2024 Election Disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Democratic<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin talks about the economy and immigration at Teresitas Restaurant in East Los Angeles on July 30, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0(Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz\/MediaNews Group\/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t run as the party of democracy and transparency and then stick your own election autopsy in a drawer,\u201d said one critic.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Brad Reed<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dec 18, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Democratic National Committee<\/a> on Thursday drew strong criticism when it was revealed that the party\u2019s autopsy of its failures in the 2024 presidential election would not be publicly released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According<\/a> to the New York Times<\/a><\/em>, DNC<\/a> Chairman Ken Martin has decided against releasing the report because he \u201cbelieves that looking back so publicly and painfully at the past would prove counterproductive for the party as it tries next year to take back power in Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RECOMMENDED…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Autopsy Says Corporate Capture, Support for Genocide Were Key Factors in Democrats\u2019 2024 Disaster<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"ICE<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u2018A Chilling Assertion\u2019: Trump Officials Falsely Claim Citizens Must Carry Immigration Docs to Prove Their Status<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The decision to keep a lid on the report, however, is already sparking a backlash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New Republic\u2019s<\/em> Greg Sargent argued<\/a> in a Thursday piece that the decision by the DNC to bury the report \u201cshould unleash harsh criticism and recriminations\u201d because it \u201ccould end up protecting key actors inside the party from accountability over the blown but winnable contest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sargent then pointed the finger at Future Forward, a super PAC that he said has earned a reputation for blowing large sums of money on ineffective television ads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell before Election Day, the PAC came under harsh criticism from some Democrats who argued that it hadn\u2019t spent sufficient money earlier in the campaign on ads attacking Trump,\u201d Sargent wrote. \u201cOther Democrats charged that Future Forward\u2019s ad-testing model and addiction to traditional TV ads led to anodyne communications and that its flawed theory of politics caused it to refrain from sufficiently targeting Trump, letting him avoid blame for his first-term disasters on Covid-19<\/a> and the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Hauser, founder and executive director of the Revolving Door Project<\/a>, told Common Dreams<\/em> that Martin\u2019s decision to bury the report was part of a broader pattern of a lack of accountability for US elites, an issue that he said is becoming more important\u201c as America gets less and less equal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKen Martin seems determined to become the Merrick Garland<\/a> of DNC Chairs,\u201d added Hauser, \u201ca feckless amiable sort unwilling to take on the powerful people who scream out for stringent accountability. Democrats ought to re-center their entire party around holding elites, be they from Big Tech<\/a>, the Democratic Party<\/a> establishment, Big Oil<\/a>, or Trump\u2019s kleptocratic regime, accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rotimi Adeoye, a columnist for MS Now<\/em> and former communications strategist for the American Civil Liberties<\/a> Union, also accused party insiders of trying to protect elites at the expense of rebuilding public trust with voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is also happening as Congressional Dems sit at a -55 net approval,\u201d he argued on X. \u201cIf your numbers are that bad and your response is to bury the autopsy, you\u2019re basically telling voters the insiders get protection while the base gets lectures.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adeoye added that \u201cyou can\u2019t run as the party of democracy<\/a> and transparency and then stick your own election autopsy in a drawer,\u201d and said that \u201cif the DNC thinks the report would \u2018hurt the party,\u2019 that means the problems are real and political, not analytical\u2014and that\u2019s exactly why people want to read it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Journalist Yashar Ali, meanwhile, sent out a message on Bluesky encouraging DNC staffers who have access to the report to let him publish it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you have access to this DNC report, please send it to me,\u201d he wrote<\/a>. \u201cI will protect your anonymity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the DNC isn\u2019t releasing its own report documenting party failures in 2024, the progressive advocacy group RootsAction last week published an autopsy written by journalist Christopher D. Cook, who argued<\/a> that former Vice President Kamala Harris<\/a>\u2019 campaign made a major mistake by trying to court so-called moderate Republican voters and corporate donors instead of focusing on the struggles of working-class Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis was a preventable disaster,\u201d Cook said, \u201cbut Harris and the Democratic Party leadership prioritized the agendas of corporate donors and gambled on a centrist path, while largely abandoning working-class, young, and progressive voters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brad Reed<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brad Reed is a staff writer for Common Dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin talks about the economy and immigration at Teresitas Restaurant in East Los Angeles on July 30, 2025. \u00a0(Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz\/MediaNews Group\/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images) \u201cYou can\u2019t run as the party of democracy and transparency and then stick your own election… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45676"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45676"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45677,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45676\/revisions\/45677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}