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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 18, 2026

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Following up on an earlier post of mine, the Democratic National Convention has released their long-awaited "autopsy" report. Critics of the party will get some immediate schadenfreude upon opening the document: the default font, the hastily-added red addenda by a higher power, the missing sections and absent formatting. The sick pleasure continues upon the realization that neither Biden's senility nor the Israel-Gaza conflict (nor the associated hysteria) ever appear in the 100+ pages.

Digging deeper, CNN reports that the autopsy was compiled by "Democratic consultant Paul Rivera," a veteran of the Clinton administration and friend of DNC chair Ken Martin. Rivera's minuscule effort and misguided conclusions result in a paper with few citations, ignorant assessments, and a half-assed attempt at shielding the DNC from the worst of it.

Well, that's certainly backfired now. The DNC hasn't looked this incompetent at its highest levels of power since the scandals of 2016 (say, was anyone ever held accountable there?) and the oft-panicked-about "competence crisis" appears to have reached a high point.

I saw the highlights of this over on rDrama and yikes. One table about political funding and spending couldn't even add up the numbers correctly (I checked and yes they were wrong, p. 127 here). If this really is what the report is like, and not some out-takes or edited parody version, God above. If this was produced by a 16 year old Transition Year student on work experience where I work, it'd be scrapped and (kindly) pointed out what was wrong with it.

If this was some sort of preliminary draft sent out by mistake, that would be embarrassing but understandable. If this is the finished (or as finished as it gets) production, may the Lord have mercy on the Democrats because they need miracles. The DNC chair seems to be saying it's real, but now I really need to know who produced this. He doesn't say who did, just who he didn't get, and looking at this mess maybe he should have gone for the slick professional consultants:

How, we all asked, could Democrats have lost to Donald Trump again? How did we blow through billions of dollars? And where do we go from here?

When I commissioned a comprehensive review of the 2024 election, I started a process to answer those questions while interrogating where our party has systemically and historically fallen short. I didn’t want that process led by anybody directly tied to the 2024 cycle – either the campaign or the consultants involved – and I did not want to put my own thumb on the scale for what might be produced. What I did ask for were actionable takeaways for the future. I wanted real, in-depth, specific recommendations to improve our allocation of resources, tech, data, organizing, media strategy, and more. I chose someone who I thought could produce this type of report.

"I chose someone who I thought could produce this type of report". Please, please, please let it be a useless nephew of his wife or other family member who was given the opportunity out of pity in order to throw him a few bob out of party coffers in the guise of "working" at a "job". I would rather the explanation be nepotism and slush funds. Because if Mr. Martin picked someone he genuinely thought would do a bang-up job, then once again, may the Good Lord Above take pity on the Democrats and this is why you guys lost in 2024, Ken.

EDIT: I see above that the author was one Paul Rivera "a veteran of the Clinton administration and friend of DNC chair Ken Martin". If this is a veteran Dem insider, they really are in trouble. How on earth did he manage to let this slip through? Did he indeed hand it over to some intern to work on? Did he start it but then decide not to go any further because nobody would care by the time the midterms came round and they (hope to be) winning all round them, then he had to scramble to throw something out to Ken because he said "No, I really do want it"?

EDIT EDIT: The more I read, the worse it gets:

Martin entrusted a top priority to a friend, Democratic consultant Paul Rivera, who volunteered to work on it part-time and waited several months to contact key officials with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ campaigns. Many top decision-makers in the campaigns were ultimately never interviewed, and Harris herself has expressed frustration privately that questions about the document have gone on.

How did they get themselves into this state, and how will they get out of it? Remember, this is the party trying to run on competence, technocratic solutions, and being smarter, richer, saner, and more compassionate than Orange Man Bad. If this is an example of "we've got the wealthy, well-educated, better informed people" then may the Lord in His mercy be kind to Belfast.

Ok, thé Clinton admin had a lot of basic competence at politics- but it was also 30 years ago. This guy could easily be experiencing age related decline, which coupled with the democrat party’s political correctness demands makes a ‘good’ report harder to come by.