But the most extreme evasion in the autopsy is the dodging of the crucial importance of the Gaza genocide. In this way, the autopsy is in keeping with how the DNC has continued to function. As the governing body of the Democratic party, the DNC has twisted itself into untenable knots while excluding concerns about Gaza and Palestinians from any serious internal debate. Martin, like the party’s congressional leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, has continued to pretend that the US government has not been arming Israel’s genocide.

In an autopsy of close to 50,000 words, not one of them is “Gaza”, or “Palestinians” or “Israel” or “genocide”. Yet credible accounts tell of meetings where the autopsy’s author, the Democratic consultant Paul Rivera, privately acknowledged that Harris’s stance on Gaza hurt her election chances. The executive director of the Institute for Middle East Understanding, Margaret DeReus, said in a statement on Thursday that “Ken Martin should release the information that the author of the autopsy told us clearly and unambiguously, which is that DNC officials’ review of their own data found Biden’s support for Israel to be a net-negative for Democrats in 2024.”