Michael Goodwin: Democrats radicalism is their biggest problem

The release by Democrats of their party’s so-called autopsy on the 2024 election is deservedly getting trashed for being late, superficial and scattershot.It’s so bad that beleaguered party boss Ken Martin tried to keep it secret by saying it was just a draft written by a part-time volunteer.Given the shockingly thin research and the lack of a coherent overarching analysis, his reluctance to go public makes sense, although there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that he could hide it.Besides, in keeping with the theory that even a blind squirrel finds an acorn, the report does contain a specific insight that makes it worth reading.That insight is the focus on a wildly effective television and digital ad run by Donald Trump’s campaign, and what the incident says about Kamala Harris and the party’s radical tendencies.The Trump ad perfectly sums up the central contrast between the candidates.It begins with a video of Harris expressing unqualified support for taxpayer-funded surgeries for transgender inmates, including illegal immigrants.The Trump ad narrator repeats what Harris had just said in the video, then drops the voice-over bomb: “Kamala is for they/them.

President Trump is for you.”The ad, one of several featuring the same Harris video, ran repeatedly in swing states and was very effective with voters, according to pollsters.They found the ads scored in large part because they used Harris’ own words against her.Moreover, the snappy conclusion spoke not only to the differences on transgender issues, but more broadly about the Dems’ fixation on a leftist agenda, at the expense of the pocketbook issues Trump was hammering away on.The report said the Harris campaign had rejected a Bill Clinton recommendation that she had to respond to the Trump ads.But aides reportedly felt the campaign was trapped because Harris was stuck with her own words.As the report puts it: “If the vice president would not change her position — and she did not — t...