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This decision by the Democratic National Committee to block the publication of its internal autopsy report concerning the last presidential race is stunning however not surprising. Averse to unpleasant candor, the Democrats' governing body operates closer to a communications shop than a political organization focused on building a volunteer base for winning elections.

An Environment That Avoids Dissent

Hesitant to challenge the party establishment's culture of conformity, the committee has remained under the Biden-Harris shadow throughout this past year. Releasing the findings might have shown that the leadership truly desire to encourage open debate about the errors which allowed the former president to win re-election. Instead, the leadership is moving forward under the pretense that there are no lessons to glean from the electoral catastrophe from the last cycle.

"Here’s our North Star: does this help us win? Should the answer be negative, it’s a distraction from our fundamental goal," an explanation that has been offered for withholding the analysis.

Critical Problems an Analysis Would Have Explored

A genuine analysis worth its salt would not dodge certain uncomfortable matters. This encompasses:

• Electoral Alienation: The loss among millions of voters that backed the party's candidate in 2020 was decisive in the close recent race.
• The Insistence to Seek Re-election: The stubborn choice of a party leader to stay in the race, coupled with an extremely delayed step-aside, has been criticized as denying the party's base of a competitive nomination process.
• Abandoning Core Democratic Voters: During a time of rising costs, the campaign is criticized for ceding to corporate donors' interests without successfully attempting to challenge the role of big business.
• A Foreign Policy Factor: The failure to shift a policy position on a major international conflict is cited as driving away key demographic groups, especially among young people, Arab American communities, Muslim voters.
• A Decline in Young Voter Backing: Polling data demonstrates a major decline of Democratic support among young voters.

A Record Avoiding Accountability

Choosing secrecy is consistent with a pattern of evading uncomfortable facts. This mirrors a dynamic in which the vast majority of elected Democrat in Congress went along with a sitting president's decision for running for re-election until a disastrous televised debate compelled a reversal.

Meanwhile, large majorities of Democratic voters were consistently telling pollsters that they did not want the incumbent to be the nominee.

Financial Issues

An honest autopsy could probe issues regarding financial allocations, such as how much money flowed to insider consultants and advertising contractors over the course of a campaign which expended a staggering amount over a few months.

A Broader Implication

Fundamentally, the suppression of the official autopsy highlights a deference toward party leaders who engineered a losing electoral effort. The signal for ordinary supporters – including millions of loyal volunteers – is that they cannot have a right to understand what the insiders claim to have learned from a report based on conversations with insiders.

A political entity unable to honestly assess where it went wrong is unlikely to escape the rut which was so advantageous to the winning candidate.