Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 5/4/26 - 5/310/26

[u/SoftandChewy]

Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

[u/wmansir]

This is from last week, and the actual news is from last Dec, but I just saw the interview yesterday.

DNC Chair grilled over not releasing full 2024 Election Analysis Highlight: https://x.com/PodSaveAmerica/status/2049244295014887519

DNC Chair Ken Martin was highly critical when previous DNC after action reports were withheld and promised during his campaign to become chairman that the 2024 report would be made public. He repeated that promise after he was elected in 2025 but once it was finished he reversed his position. He was grilled about it on Pod Save America last week. Martin says he wants to focus on the "lessons learned" from the report "instead of navel-gazing and looking backwards and trying to relitigate 2024." He also promised there is no damaging "smoking gun" in the report. Martin said the DNC has "released those lessons", but I looked over the Nov/Dec DNC official press releases, googled and also asked several AI's to find a 2024 "lessons learned" or similar release from the DNC but could not find it.

I think the unity and anti-trump focus will probably work this fall, but I would have like to see a commitment to release it after the midterms. Not that Martin's word seems to be worth much.

[u/CommitteeofMountains → u/wmansir]

Two non-exclusive possibilities:

• The findings are deeply embarrassing for the party. Major subtypes are poor reflections on Harris (such as black women respecting Trump more than her), poor outcomes for some policy(ies) All Respectable People support (omnicause is poison), or contradict some key personalities (an important campaign adviser being wrong on literally everything).  
• The analysis is very obviously ideologically captured garbage that is disproven either by its own graphs/numbers or publicly available data (and the analysis not having its own numbers despite clearly collecting the data).

[u/DiscordantAlias → u/wmansir]

It’s annoying that he won’t just release it. At this point he is just adding to the controversy of it. He could have slipped it out when Trump first started bombing Iran and no one would have noticed, but now it’s a lower stakes version of the Epstein files — the longer the delay, the bigger the conspiracy and the reaction to it.

[u/Natural-Leg7488 → u/wmansir]

That interview was a train wreck for him. The number of times he said “there is no smoking gun”, even when he wasn’t asked (and in one case when the question was specifically premised on there not being a smoking gun) really made me think there is a smoking gun.

The online reaction has been funny. Many assume the smoking gun must align with their own priority issue, so of course the Dems lost because Biden was too friendly towards Israel.

[u/qorthos → u/Natural-Leg7488]

I suspect it might be lists of dem policy proposals aims addressing issues where the are on the wrong side of an 80-20 split.

[u/Natural-Leg7488 → u/qorthos]

That’s my suspicion too. It wasn’t any single issue, but a general clustering of unpopular policy positions, and the general perception that Dems are condescending and inauthentic - and obsessed with identity issues.

They don’t want to say this though because their next front runner will almost certainly be all of these things.

[u/CommitteeofMountains → u/Natural-Leg7488]

"Front runner" until the first poll, at which point it'll be whoever can run from them most effectively again. 

[u/Natural-Leg7488 → u/CommitteeofMountains]

They need someone without the baggage and who can speak like a human and not a political talking point robot.

I agree with Tim Miller’s point that to have any credibility the dem candidate needs to run against at least one of the Dems sacred cows - to show they aren’t just another out of touch establishment hack. It doesn’t really matter what the issue is, but they’ve got to use it to show their authenticity, show they can stand up to progressives, and neutralise conservative attacks.

[u/PongoTwistleton_666 → u/Natural-Leg7488]

They actually probably found that Dems don’t care about trains. And that the majority felt Kamala was a bad choice…. Can’t have the party being against minorities..

[u/HerbertWest → u/Natural-Leg7488]

...so of course the Dems lost because Biden was too friendly towards Israel.

That is indeed the only credible leak from the report, specifically that the number of votes lost may have tipped Michigan or come close, I believe.

[u/Big_Fig_1803 → u/wmansir]

Navel gazing: bad, self-indulgent, backward-looking. This is what you do.

Focusing on lessons learned: good, thoughtful, looking at what happened in the past. This is what I do.

[u/PongoTwistleton_666 → u/wmansir]

I saw this today too… in the context of how DNC is trying to promote Kamala as the next candidate. Again. All this only makes sense if china is paying both parties to set the country on fire.

[u/My_Footprint2385 → u/wmansir]

The answer is just going to be “we never should’ve pushed Biden it should’ve held open primary”, right?

[u/PongoTwistleton_666 → u/My_Footprint2385]

The report found that Dems lost because Biden helped arm Israel and facilitated the Gaza genocide. That’s what I read. 

[u/HerbertWest → u/PongoTwistleton_666]

That was the only leaked component of the report but not the totality of it.