patrick.net

Did that stop them from protecting Hunter?

The New York Times ran a delicious ironic story yesterday below the incredible headline —I promise this is real— “The D.N.C. Is Scrapping Its Report on What Went Wrong in 2024.”

When lanky, mild-mannered white guy Ken Martin was elected to head the Democrat National Party early this year, it was in the wake of the worst-case scenario for the donkey party: a national Trump landslide. After screwing up initial candidate selection so badly that Biden flamed out in the first Trump debate, the anti-democratic Democrat elites performed a quick coup, and with a David Copperfield-like wave of their ruling sticks —SHAZAM!— and a puff of sulphuric smoke, in ran Kamala the Cackler. She appeared without any time-wasting public debate, and saved all the risky controversy that might have been caused by Democrat primary voters.

Having anointed a new candidate, and like a Dyson super-vac set on ’11,’ party elites hoovered up a Solomonic warchest from donors— $2.5 billion spent over just six weeks. And still they lost every swing state. Every single one. Not just that, but despite all that money and effort, they lost both chambers of Congress, handing Trump a gold-embossed mandate and perfecting voters’ utter rejection of their “not Trump” agenda. ...

In the most astonishing quote of all, the Mr. Rogers lookalike finally said the quiet part out loud: all the Democrats care about is winning. “Here’s our North Star: Does this help us win?” Mr. Martin said in a widely reported statement. “If the answer is no, it’s a distraction from the core mission.”

And there you have it.

It was pretty rich. This win-at-all-costs mindset is the same kind of anti-democratic nonsense that got the Democrats into this mess in the first place. Shut up and let the party elites decide what you need to know. Had they run a competitive mini-primary in the summer of 2024, instead of just selecting Kamala, they might have found a stronger candidate.

Now they are doing the same thing, all over again, raising the question of who really runs the party? The party’s members? Clearly not. Shady, behind-the-scenes billionaires? Nancy Pelosi? An artificial intelligence in orbit? Emperor Palpatine? ...

Others called the decision to seal up the report “cowardice,” “a hilarious self-own,” and “mind-bogglingly stupid.” Other folks described it in blunter terms, in ways that cannot be reprinted in this family blog.

But don’t judge too quickly. It’s not like they’re attacking democracy or anything. Coronating selected candidates without voting and burying inconvenient reports to protect the rich and powerful is definitely not ‘threatening democracy.’ Spending $2.5 billion in a blitz, losing every swing state and both chambers, then sealing the official report explaining how it all went wrong —especially the parts that might embarrass big donors and consultants— is just smart politics.

When Martin said winning trumps everything, that included voting, transparency, honest self-criticism, equal rights, rebuilding trust with the base, campaign promises, and control of the thermostat. And, apparently, winning even trumps democracy itself.