Because we’re all beside ourselves that Trump is destroying our country while enriching himself, it’s only natural to want to find people to blame for Kamala’s loss, and to blame “the party.”

One person not to blame is Ken Martin.  Trump’s win is something Ken had nothing to do with.  He was Minnesota party chair at the time (a state Kamala and every other statewide Democrat won in 2024). 

By and large, from what I can see — and having worked with 10 of them over the last 27 years — he is doing a good job as DNC chair.  (I’ll get to the “autopsy” in a second.)

Nor was “the party” to blame for the disaster.

“The party” doesn’t tell the candidate or her campaign what to do.  It’s not like China, where the head of the party commands total obedience.

It’s unrealistic to think that then-DNC-chair Jaime Harrison could have ordered the president to drop out a year earlier (as he should have) . . . or prevented him from urging his pledged delegates to coalesce around Kamala, which they quickly did, giving her more than enough delegates to win the nomination, thus avoiding the quickie primary that a lot of us wanted, and out of which Kamala or someone else would have emerged with more perceived legitimacy.

And by the way?  Until the debate, it was clear that Joe was old, for sure — but also clear that he and his team were doing a really good job, making good decisions, with inflation and interest rates dropping back to desired levels, and finally getting their worst issue — the border — solved with a tough bipartisan bill that had a majority in both the House and the Senate . . . that Trump killed.

Many of us were nervous about his ability to campaign, but not his ability to continue to make good decisions and lead his much younger, passionate, competent team to yet more accomplishments.

That said, he and Jill should have decided in early 2023 to take the win and pass the torch; but that’s not on the DNC or Ken Martin.

People understandably think the DNC chair, as leader of the party, should — lead!  But, again, that’s how it works in China.  Here, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and the rest of the progressive ecosphere don’t look to the party chair for instructions; they look to him or her to provide infrastructure that all 50 state parties and 8,000+ candidates rely on.

Here is an overview of what Ken’s DNC is doing, if you have a few minutes (and if I’ve embedded the PDF properly . . . give it a few seconds to load, then page through with the arrows that appear when you hover over the bottom margin).

And here is the 197-page DNC Playbook his team has prepared for those running campaigns.

I’m not competent to judge what grade these deserve — I would think someplace between a B-minus and an A-plus, but surely not a C or a D.

Whereas, by contrast, the “autopsy” released last week deserves — in Ken’s own estimation — a D or an F.

Which is why he resisted releasing it.

> In hindsight, one can certainly ask whether he should he have commissioned an “autopsy” at all.  Stuart Stevens argues not.  It’s a compelling clip worth watching.

> Having committed to do the autopsy, one can certainly fault him for choosing someone not up to the task.

> And having received the report, one can question whether he should have given in to pressure to release it — albeit with a bright red disavowal at the top of literally every page.

The very same people who called on him to resign for NOT releasing it now call on him to resign because he did release it (without noting in their petition drives and fundraising appeals that he agrees it sucks).

But, as noted, there is so much more to the job of DNC chair than producing an after-action report and finding people, decisions, and missteps to blame for Kamala’s loss. 

(It doesn’t take a genius — or a report — to know that Jill should have urged Joe to go out with glory a year earlier than he did; or that Kamala should have had a better answer on “the View”; or that, egged on by consultants who get a piece of the spend, the Harris campaign skewed too heavily toward TV versus social media.  But the Chairman had nothing to do with those decisions.)

So, look.  I have not talked to Ken about any of this.  I basically just work with the finance staff asking people for money.  (Click here!)

And I’m not arguing Ken is perfect — or that any of the chairs I’ve worked with has been perfect.

But he works harder than anyone . . . has “organizing” — and winning — in his bones . . . and I think would willingly step aside if he determined it were in the party’s interest for him to do so.

I don’t believe it is.

Rather than working to depose Ken Martin, I’d love to see those enraged by the autopsy report focus on helping him depose the Republican leadership.  No one is more committed to that task than he.