An autopsy is something that’s conducted to determine the cause of death. And death it was. And death it still is. I feel the pain of Republicans and conservatives who find Trump abhorrent, both personally and politically. To the extent I shared those feelings toward the Democratic Party, the “autopsy” released by Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin, under extreme  pressure  after he sought to conceal it due to the shame it would reveal about the handling of the 2024 presidential campaign and the party’s abject inability to face its failings, only deepened and confirmed my worst fears.

But the “autopsy” is now out in the open and confirms, in its stunning incompetence, the worst fears of the Democratic Party.

The Democratic National Committee on Thursday released a nearly 200-page draft of an internal autopsy of what went wrong in the 2024 campaign, ending months of speculation that had created an embarrassing public spectacle for the party as it seeks to regain control of Congress.

The draft report places blame for former Vice President Kamala Harris’s defeat partly on former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s political operation, arguing that it did not position her for success in the race after Mr. Biden dropped out. It also critiques the Harris campaign for failing to distance itself from Mr. Biden, and for not producing an effective strategy to make a dent in Donald J. Trump’s rising approval ratings.

Sure,* Biden’s presidency was deeply flawed, and his insistence on running given his clear dotage was absurd. As for Harris, she had an opportunity daily to be a person who said something, stood for something, would do something, but chose instead to spew vapid, nonresponsive talking points that would never cause anyone to want to vote for her. Her sole virtue was that she wasn’t Trump, but in a nation sick of the woke takeover, that wasn’t nearly good enough.

What the “autopsy” revealed was that the Democrats refused to come to grips with the fact that it was no longer a liberal party, patriotic to the nation, supportive of the Constitution and protective of the rights of all Americans, not just its flavor of the moment marginalized cohort.

The document itself was widely mocked. Atop each page was a bright red disclaimer that the D.N.C. “was not provided with the underlying sourcing, interviews, or supporting data for many of the assertions contained herein.” A page with the title “Executive Summary” was blank except for a note in red reading: “This section was not provided by author.”

Particular facts included in the version that the committee released were highlighted in yellow and annotated as either unverified and inaccurate. There was no list of who was interviewed, no transcriptions and no notes, which made determining the veracity of the draft all but impossible, said a person familiar with the process.

This critique, sharp though it may be, is one of process, not substance. If it had been better annotated, and note, name and transcriptions of interviews provided, would it have done any more than confirm the bias of those with their hands of the wheel of the ship? One complaint since the Obama administration is that the party failed to bring in younger people to take the wheel as the geriatrics aged out.

But age alone, while important for the purposes of continuity and longevity, was never enough. Progressives were young, passionate and absolutely wrong. And the olds, who refused to let go of the wheel even as their decrepit, arthritic hands could no longer hold it firm, lacked the courage to tell the loud, purple-haired children to grow up and get their heads of their collective childish butts.

The irony today is that while Trump’s approval rating is lower now than it was following January 6th, a day that should live in infamy unless Trump gets his way, the approval rating of the Democratic Party is even worse. And this autopsy shows that the Democrats have no clue why and no capacity to right the ship.

As I said to Howl on the twitters,

I would have voted for a dead skunk rather than Trump. But that doesn’t mean I want to vote for a dead skunk.

My apologies to skunks.

In the coming midterm election, turning Congress Democratic serves the extremely important purpose of splitting the government, with the Trumpians in control of the Executive Branch and the Democrats in control of the Legislative Branch. Divided government is almost certainly a guarantee of paralysis, which used to be considered a bad thing. No more. Under the current administration, paralysis is the best we can hope for.

Trump has proven to be as bad, nay worse, than anyone imagined after his first term, in which his ignorance of law and governance and incompetence was his best feature. This time, Trump has surrounded himself with more effective and shameless sycophants and scoundrels, who won’t let law or governance get in their way. This corruption must be stopped, and a Democratic Congress might show the mettle to do something about it. But as for a party anyone wants to vote for because they provide a vision of the future America desires, the autopsy says it all. It’s dead and they have no clue how to resurrect it.

*Anyone doubting my views throughout the Biden administration or the Harris campaign is welcome to look back at my posts throughout that time period. One of the benefits of having a blog is that your thoughts at the time are available for all to see.