"Ex P.F.C. Wintergreen!" I was a little iffy about reading the article at first, but Sam Kahn has been pretty on-point for me, so I gave it a shot, and while I appreciate the take, I was lukewarm.
But then Ex P.F.C. Wintergreen showed up, and I laughed out loud. (I very seldom laugh out loud at politics and political writing) A perfect analogy, a perfect and welcome call back. Made my day!
The DNC has finally stumbled over the truth about the 2024 election disaster. However, in true bureaucratic fashion, the DNC has got up, dusted itself off and is now proceeding into the midterm elections as if nothing untoward had happened.
Lack of sourcing and elaboration is actually pretty important! It wasn't the reports job to randomly make some guesses about the issue; its job was to look at evidence and pull it into a conclusion.
TL;DR: It sucked, they could have hired me to write a Tweet and got more info
A rare weak article from Persuasion. I got more and more annoyed the longer I read it. The report is not "fine." It is actually a joke. It does not mention immigration at all, to my understanding. I don't think this article mentions it either, maybe in passing. The proposed executive summary given here, the alternative version, is about messaging and other obvious platitudes. This article concedes that the report does not mention hiding Biden's mental state, yet is somehow still "fine." Those two things - immigration and the way they handled Biden - big factors in Trump winning in 2024. The Democrats don't seem to have actually learned anything, and if this author is a democrat, that makes perfect sense. Overall, a pretty useless piece here. But maybe there is something to the idea that the report had very low ambitions, and was "perfectly fine" as far as these things go. Either way, it is truly worthless. I would like to see the Democrats come to terms with where they went wrong. But no - as far as these things go, it's all "fine."
The report, as released, shouldn't have made it past any serious clearance proess. DNC Leadership seems to have treated it like it was an example of poor effort for a parent-teacher conference and thrown up their arms in collective frustration.
Poor party leadership lost the 2024 election. Time for some new blood to rise to the top. because gas prices won't stay high forever.
If Mr. Martin wants to redeem himself, and get some actionable information at the same time, he'll pay Tim Miller to take a three month leave from The Bulwark, give him a free hand, and ask him to put together a team and re-do the post-mortem. He's actually done one before; he delivered bad news and his then-party rejected the report as news they didn't want to hear -- but they couldn't hide behind typos and insufficient footnoting to do it.
"Ex P.F.C. Wintergreen!" I was a little iffy about reading the article at first, but Sam Kahn has been pretty on-point for me, so I gave it a shot, and while I appreciate the take, I was lukewarm.
But then Ex P.F.C. Wintergreen showed up, and I laughed out loud. (I very seldom laugh out loud at politics and political writing) A perfect analogy, a perfect and welcome call back. Made my day!
The DNC has finally stumbled over the truth about the 2024 election disaster. However, in true bureaucratic fashion, the DNC has got up, dusted itself off and is now proceeding into the midterm elections as if nothing untoward had happened.
Lack of sourcing and elaboration is actually pretty important! It wasn't the reports job to randomly make some guesses about the issue; its job was to look at evidence and pull it into a conclusion.
TL;DR: It sucked, they could have hired me to write a Tweet and got more info
Anyone who read this: go read the report! It's online. See if you think it sucks or if the DNC was lying to bury it. I think it sucks
https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/21/politics/read-full-dnc-2024-autopsy-cnn
Both statements can be true.
To which I'd add a third: the circumstances under which the report was commissioned virtually guaranteed its failure.
This is an odd article. The report really and truly sucked.
A rare weak article from Persuasion. I got more and more annoyed the longer I read it. The report is not "fine." It is actually a joke. It does not mention immigration at all, to my understanding. I don't think this article mentions it either, maybe in passing. The proposed executive summary given here, the alternative version, is about messaging and other obvious platitudes. This article concedes that the report does not mention hiding Biden's mental state, yet is somehow still "fine." Those two things - immigration and the way they handled Biden - big factors in Trump winning in 2024. The Democrats don't seem to have actually learned anything, and if this author is a democrat, that makes perfect sense. Overall, a pretty useless piece here. But maybe there is something to the idea that the report had very low ambitions, and was "perfectly fine" as far as these things go. Either way, it is truly worthless. I would like to see the Democrats come to terms with where they went wrong. But no - as far as these things go, it's all "fine."
The report, as released, shouldn't have made it past any serious clearance proess. DNC Leadership seems to have treated it like it was an example of poor effort for a parent-teacher conference and thrown up their arms in collective frustration.
Poor party leadership lost the 2024 election. Time for some new blood to rise to the top. because gas prices won't stay high forever.
If Mr. Martin wants to redeem himself, and get some actionable information at the same time, he'll pay Tim Miller to take a three month leave from The Bulwark, give him a free hand, and ask him to put together a team and re-do the post-mortem. He's actually done one before; he delivered bad news and his then-party rejected the report as news they didn't want to hear -- but they couldn't hide behind typos and insufficient footnoting to do it.
I got noose for y'all: tell me which autopsy if done ever, by people- the most affected- is done with critical depth?
There is always a goodfella sparing of the elephant in the room !
This has led to one failed war after another!
T. S. Eliot