“When I was elected DNC chair, I commissioned an after action review of the 2024 election that I wanted to be honest and transparent, and with actionable and specific takeaways for the future of the Democratic Party. When I received the report late last year, it wasn’t ready for primetime — not even close — and because no source material was provided, it would have meant starting over. I could not in good faith put the DNC’s stamp of approval on the report that was produced.”
“After last November’s massive Democratic wins, I didn’t want to create a distraction, but by not putting the report out, I ended up creating an even bigger distraction. For that, I sincerely apologize. For full transparency, I am releasing the report as we received it, in its entirety, unedited and unabridged. It does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards, but I am doing this because people need to be able to trust the Democratic Party and trust our word.”
I have Democratic friends who think that this should be good enough and are pretty passionate about that. I try to tell them that it doesn’t animate most voters, but they don’t hear me. From talking to them, I get the impression that they view their party as some force of nature that just decrees who the candidate will be, and they have no power over it. I can see why they feel that way, but I don’t understand why they think that’s acceptable. Or I guess that they don’t think it’s acceptable, but they don’t think there’s anything that they can do about it. It’s learned helplessness.
A passionate democrat? I’ve genuinely not met one of those in the last decade. People who prefer the status quo to *gestures broadly* are pretty common, though.
I think there’s plenty of passion. Just look at the No Kings protests! The problem is that there aren’t any goals beyond “stop the Republicans”.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.