Author of 2024 Democrat Autopsy Says That Crucial Section Was Suppressed by the DNC -- A Chapter Accusing Democrats of Being Greedy and Self-Serving and Putting Their Quest for "Generational Wealth" Above the Fortunes of the Party

Embattled DNC head Ken Martin claims he didn't bury this part of the autopsy. He claims he never received it.

The author of the report, Paul Rivera, says he's lying.

Author of Democrats' 2024 Autopsy Says Party Left Out Key Chapter

A dispute over the chapter between the author and the Democratic National Committee has added to the party's turmoil as it tries to look forward, not backward.

By Shane Goldmacher

After months of resistance, the Democratic National Committee finally relented this May and published a draft of its autopsy of what had gone wrong in the 2024 election, saying it was releasing the unfinished document "in its entirety" in the interest of transparency.

But, according to the man who wrote the autopsy, there was a missing chapter.

The chapter raised pointed questions that were notably absent from the draft that the party put out, both about President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s ill-fated decision to run for re-election and the sway of an operative class that had become "generationally wealthy off politics" while steering Democratic strategy.

Paul Rivera, the author of the autopsy, provided the chapter to The New York Times and spoke publicly for the first time about the party's efforts to analyze its 2024 losses. Both he and party officials agreed that the process had been messy and at times contentious. He said that the draft released by the party had been compiled from work he submitted in November and December.

But he said that the draft omitted a chapter titled "What Happened in 2024," which he said he had printed out and placed in a three-ring binder that he personally handed to the party's chairman, Ken Martin, in January.

Mr. Martin sharply disputed that account, denying in a written statement that he was ever provided with the missing chapter.

"That is false," Mr. Martin said. "This alleged report section was not in any binder I reviewed." He added, "If we had this in May, we would have released it with the rest of the report." He declined a request to be interviewed.

The disputed "What Happened" chapter addressed several politically delicate subjects that were not included in the draft the party published in May:

It questioned Mr. Biden's decision to seek re-election in the first place: "Is there a single point of failure for 2024? Perhaps it is a decision of the President to seek re-election instead of passing the torch."

It analyzed the party's loss of support among Hispanic, Black, Asian American and Native American voters, which had been mostly missing from the public draft.

And it pointedly raised the concern that most senior Democratic strategists in 2024 were "financially secure" and thus removed from the challenges facing many Americans. "It is therefore possible the people 'in the room' at the highest levels of 2024 decision making misunderstood the mood and practicalities facing everyday America," the report read.

...

The chapter did not name names of those who had become "generationally wealthy." But Mr. Rivera wrote that those Democrats seeking change "keep banging their heads up against a system proven to be inflexible and self-enriching."

"Whether that was a conscious decision on their part to bury the section for the purposes of hiding a paragraph, I don't know," Mr. Rivera said of the D.N.C. "That's a them question. What I can tell you is they had it, and they made a decision not to release it."

...

The dispute threatens to become a distraction for the party less than 100 days before the November midterm elections, when Democrats hope that President Trump's poor approval ratings will help them win control of the House and possibly the Senate. And it comes as Mr. Martin has come under fire for his stewardship of a party that recently reported more than $2 million in debt, while the Republican National Committee had $128.5 million in the bank.

Mr. Rivera, whose reputation was damaged when the party released and disavowed his draft report, said he was going public because he believed the party needed sweeping changes to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past -- which would require frank conversations that he does not see happening.

"It's coming from a place of hope and, honestly, a little bit of desperation," he said.

"There's a very comfortable ecosystem that will profit mightily from no change," said Mr. Rivera, who added that he was now releasing his own 564-page review of the 2024 election. "And I think that we need some disruption here to force change."

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 04:30 PM

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