Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin and the Democrats seem to be having trouble analyzing what happened back in 2024. Learning from your mistakes helps to avoid repeating them, which makes this analysis essential.
Many of us, on the other hand, have no trouble at all figuring out what went wrong. But no one listens to us because we are simply voters and not the all-important analysts and consultants who make big money advising political parties.
Now, I have written many of these ideas and summaries in previous posts but, clearly, they bear repeating. So here goes with my own review and recommendations:
Suggestions for the Document
Don’t call it an autopsy. You may have failed but you didn’t die. Cutting yourself into pieces will only help the opposition. Call it an analysis or an evaluation, or even a summary. Anything but an autopsy.
Don’t publish it. Really. Just don’t. Will the document leak? Of course, it will but that’s no reason to put it out there for your enemies to rake over and make you look even worse. Also, why arm your enemies? Letting them know your weakness is giving them information they can use to attack you. It’s like a general publishing his plan of attack so the enemy can figure out how to counter it. Let them work for that research: don’t hand it to them.
The Democrats’ Big Fat Strategic Mistake
We all know the most effective ad the Republicans ran because we all saw it. The Democrats handed them that ad with their obsession about pronouns.
What underlies the obsession, however, is even more important. It has two parts and I cannot say it more simply than this:
- No one ever won the majority by appealing to the minority.
- Especially when the majority views that minority as deviant and offensive.
Got that? It’s pretty simple. If you want to win the majority, talk to them about issues that concern them and do it in language they can understand. The people who are driven by pronouns and wokeness and trans rights will vote for you anyway.
All you have to say is that you support the rights of all Americans to health care regardless of who they are or what state they live in. Then pivot to an issue that drives the majority to the polls.
The Second-Term Decision
You failed to push back on the decision that Joe Biden should run for a second term. As I said in It Was Never Joe and Jill’s Decision, you lost sight of a significant fact. You assumed that Joe Biden was the only one who could beat Donald Trump because he was the only one who had already beaten Donald Trump.
But the decision on who the candidate should be belonged not to a small group of party insiders but to the American people. How could the DNC not understand this?
One of the rules I live by is this:
Fear attracts the object of fear.
That means when you act out of fear, you bring about the very thing that frightens you. This decision gives us a classic example. Because they were afraid Trump would be elected, a small group of people did very things that caused Trump to be elected.
Which leads to . . .
No Open Primary for the Democrats
This was an incredible, monumental blunder. I cannot state this strongly enough.
Not having an open primary handed the news cycle and thus months of free publicity to the Republicans.
While President Biden stayed quiet and mostly invisible, the Republicans took over the political forum in America. The sturm und drang of their primary dominated what we saw and heard and read day after day, night after night. It seemed inevitable that a Republican would win because those were the only candidates we saw or heard from.
I’m paraphrasing this section of the original post because I think not having an open primary was the single most important mistake the Democrats made. The repercussions were enormous and all negative for the Democrats:
The Benefits of an Open Primary
Millions of us would have seized the opportunity to choose the Democratic candidate in an open primary. That would have been productive and exciting. In addition, an open primary would have had multiple advantages for the Democrats:
- The voters could have had a say in who the candidate would be. That process might actually have resulted in a man or woman who was young, vital, full of ideas, and eager to fight.
- It would have provided the news media with grist for their ever-grinding daily news machine. During this period, the only party generating news was the Republican Party.
Thus, they churned out positions and information about the Republicans every day and night while the Democrats were silent and invisible. It began to seem like the only people in America running for the presidency were Republicans and thus a Republican President was inevitable. - The Democrats would have had a mechanism for introducing their bench strength: the roster of candidates who were qualified, experienced and eager to run.
- The party would have also had the opportunity to present their ideas and policies to the American public and measure their response ahead of the general election.
- An open primary would have energized the Democratic base by showing that the party was full of fight. Instead, we got silence and invisibility from the entire party, which tiptoed in fear of contradicting Joe and Jill.
Bad Messaging
The Democrats are bad at messaging. We all know this. I have written three blog posts about how they get messages, the media, and the timing wrong. To reach the heart of the problem though, I have five words for them to remember:
No Message IS the Message.
If you don’t have anything to say because you don’t know what to say, or you’re searching for the perfect words, or you’re hiding for fear of criticism, that silence says volumes. It says you are weak and scared, have no plans or ideas, and can’t stand up to criticism.
Stop worrying and talk to the voters. Use real words, not Latin phrases like quid pro quo. Nobody understands that and, even if they do, it doesn’t motivate anyone. No army ever went into battle under the banner of “Quid Pro Quo.” Or, for that matter, “I am Woke,” “My Pronouns Are,” or “Trans Rights.”
Try something like, “Take Back America,” and it may work. By now, millions of voters understand what America has lost. But whatever words you choose, make them active, dynamic, forceful and easy to understand.
My Analysis So Far
That’s my analysis so far. I know the Democratic National Committee will pay no attention to it because I’m not and insider. But you don’t get information on the voting public by listening only to insiders.
Reach out. Talk to real people face to face. Forget surveys and polling. Get out into the real America and listen to the majority. It might shake up some of your assumptions, but that’s probably a good thing.
Related Posts for the Democrats:
I dealt with all of these topics in previous posts and I urge you to read them for the details. Here are the links:
