ArcaMax

SAN DIEGO -- Every time I see another example of President Donald Trump weakening America -- by desecrating our Constitution, destroying our traditions, or diminishing our position in the world -- I get furious.

At Democrats.

The way I see it, Trump didn't actually win the 2024 presidential election. Democrats lost it.

Think about it. Facing a deeply flawed Republican opponent saddled with 34 felony convictions and four criminal indictments, Democrats snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. They lost the plot. Shortly thereafter, they also lost the White House -- which Trump then proceeded to vandalize when he leveled the East Wing to build a $1 billion ballroom that he hopes you and I will pay for.

How did Democrats wind up losing to one of the few Republicans on Earth they should have been able to easily defeat?

Eighteen months after the fact, the answers are obvious -- except to the Democratic National Committee.

Recently, the DNC Chair, Ken Martin, put out a much-anticipated report that was meant to be a post-election autopsy. Instead, it is a cautionary tale about what happens when you try so hard not to say the wrong thing that you wind up saying nothing at all.

The 192-page document -- which was written by Democratic consultant Paul Rivera, who worked on it pro bono and part-time -- was shoddy, unclear and incomplete.

It got some things right. It noted that millions of working-class Americans "do not see themselves in the America of the Democratic Party" and that Democrats have shown a "persistent inability or unwillingness to listen to all voters."

However, for the most part, the autopsy spoke in vague generalities.

Like when it urged Democrats to focus on voters in "Middle America and the South, who have come to believe they are not included in the Democratic vision of a stronger and more dynamic America for everyone."

When it tried to get specific, it missed the target. Instead of admitting that Harris was a terrible communicator and a mediocre campaigner, the report blamed the Biden White House for not giving her enough support.

There was no mention of how Democrats were hurt by their support for Israel's war in Gaza or former President Joe Biden mimicking Trump's ugly immigration policies.

Once he got the report and realized it was flawed, Martin should have hired professional communicators to fix it. Instead, he tried to bury it. He only released it because CNN got its hands on it.

In all, the botched autopsy got a lot of things wrong, left a lot of things out, and made a lot of people angry.

The angry folks are mainly Democrats. Some of them talked to Politico, which published an article that catalogued the complaints and criticisms. Adrienne Elrod, a senior adviser on the Biden and then Harris campaigns, advised taking the report with "a massive grain of salt" because it reflected a "highly ineffective, ill-researched process."

For Republicans, the embarrassment that Democrats are suffering as a result of the report could not have come at a better time. They're a hot mess. Trump has hijacked their party, made enemies out of former GOP allies in Congress, forgotten all about inflation, alienated the majority of Americans, attacked former conservative media allies like Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson, allowed the Republican Party to split in half over racism and anti-Semitism, and lost the trust of voters than he can deal effectively with any issue -- from trade and immigration to the economy and foreign affairs.

That's a whole lot of mayhem conjured up by the Mad King. Yet, with midterms approaching and big losses in the cards, Republicans still have an ace in the hole. It's a dysfunctional Democratic Party that is afraid to look in the mirror.

Still, there are those out there who think the media and the political insiders got this story all wrong. They say the report ran afoul of the DNC because it angered progressives by advising Democrats to go to the center.

Could be. But that message never got through. What did get through was fear. The report reeks of it. What's important is not what made it onto the page, but what was left out. It's clear the author -- who is, after all, a Democratic consultant -- didn't want to offend anyone who could throw some business at him down the line.

This is political malpractice. You don't get to the center by ignoring past mistakes and refusing to name names. You only get lost in the weeds.

That is exactly where Democrats ended up. Which, is yet another reason for anti-Trump voters to be furious with them.

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To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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