The Missing Chapter
How the DNC’s 2024 Autopsy Buried the Truth About Its Own "Generationally Wealth" Consultant Class
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The last thing I wanted to do was cover the stupid 2024 DNC autopsy report again. But this shit isn’t just an academic exercise; it’s a live-action confirmation of every single point I have been screaming about for over a year. The fight over this missing chapter is the entire civil war inside the Democratic Party, compressed into a single, perfect story, with lies, accusations and plausible deniability.
The Missing Chapter is “Up vs. Down ”“Wave
The chapter that Paul Rivera says he handed to Ken Martin personally and that Martin claims “Never saw it” is the literal, physical embodiment of the consultant “up vs down ”“wave; this is that moment the party’s consultants was forced to confront the very Americans they claim to represent.
The chapter reportedly begins to question Biden’s decision to run, it supposedly gives us analysis on the loss of support among Hispanic, Black, and Asian American voters, and it also pointed out that Senior Democratic Strategists who had become “generationally wealthy in politics” were removed from the challenges facing Americans. No offense, but I didn’t need a report to tell me this but hey, news is news.
So the entire thesis here is that the Democratic Party’s “generationally wealthy” consultants living in their nice little bubbles apparently misunderstood the mood and let’s say the practicalities facing the American voter. We knew this already, but this is “down wave and this missing chapter was the “up waves” attempt to break through the ice.
The “He Said, He Said” That Exposes Everything
So let’s look at the dispute itself because that’s the real story here. Rivera says he hand-delivered the chapter in a three-ring binder. Martin says, “That’s false,” and that “this alleged report section was not in any binder I reviewed.”
So this fight is over the existence of pieces of paper, but what it’s really about is a over the party’s dying soul; we need to be real about that. Martin, the head of the DNC, is claiming he would have released the chapter if he had it, stating, “If I or the D.N.C had report materials that went after self-enriching consultants, we absolutely would have included them?
Okay Ken, sure buddy, I believe you, except the party’s actions tell a different story. They released a draft that was incomplete and unverifiable,” with a disclaimer on every page noting that the document reflects the views of the author, not the D.N.C. They released a report that was so “stupid” and full of errors that it became a demoralizing joke inside the media and party strategists.
The Comfortable Ecosystem That Will “Profit Mightily From No Change”
Rivera’s reason for going public is the key here at this moment. And as you are reading, I want you to think about where the party establishment is right now. Rivera said he was speaking 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…. And I think we need some disruption here to force change.”
That actually makes more sense to me than any word inside that stupid report. I thought it was dull anyway, and the idea here that there is a missing chapter- I read every word of that stupid autopsy; it sounded out of touch to begin with. But this is the fight in a nutshell. The party’s consultant class is a ‘comfortable ecosystem’ that profits off the status quo and shit staying the exact same. They are the ones who are optimized for raising money, every funding email, every publication,” the same ones who are “afraid of their own shadow,” the ones who would rather let a lie go unchallenged than risk offending a donor.
This mysterious missing chapter was a direct threat to that ecosystem. This thing was a mirror held up to the party’s leadership, and oops, they didn’t like what they saw. So surprise, they misplaced it, buried it or never looked in the first place.
The fact that this story won’t die and is coming out now, less than 100 days before the most consequential midterms of our lives is a testament to the fact the the problems happening inside the number 2 party in power are not going away. The party’s attempt to bury and hide the autopsy initially is what made it a bigger story.
The DNC is more than $2 million in debt, while the RNC has $128.5 million in the bank. Martin is under enormous pressure to step down or add a co-chair. The party is a freaking mess, and the fight over this missing chapter, is the perfect symbol of that mess.
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The most politically important thing Democrats can do is reform the DNC. Calls to abolish it are rampant on Substack but miss the point: coordination at the national level is all-important for a political party. I'd like to see an analysis of the report, in detail, with nothing redacted or withheld.