I am not routinely exercised by intraparty politics — what transpires (or doesn’t) within the Democratic National Committee, for example. However, after listening to DNC Chairman Ken Martin’s (I resisted my unconscious urge to spell Ken’s last name “Martian”) interview with Jon Favreau on Pod Save America, I’m convinced Ken needs to go.1
In the words of the inimitable Margaret Cho: “Gurl, you can get a ride home, can’t you?! You can get a ride; you can take the bus. You go! No, I mean, you go! Bye!”
Martin’s “answers” to Favreau’s questions were obviously evasive and so noxiously snotty and arrogant that I found it hard to keep listening. Worse than his communication style, though, was the authoritarian vibe.
Consider the following exchange:
Favreau (19:26ff): “The headline number is $20,000 a month per state. My understanding is that it also includes the Democratic Party of Guam and the party of the Northern Mariana Islands, which gets basically the same check as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, or North Carolina.
I get that every state and territory has DNC members. Every one of them voted in the DNC election. You won. But it’s also a real chunk of money flowing to places without federal races.
And so I just wonder: if you have this much debt, is it the right allocation of money to give to state parties in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, when Axios reported that they’re also contemplating layoffs at the DNC?”
Martin (20:40ff): “I haven’t laid anyone off since I’ve been DNC chair [you’ll notice he answered a question he wasn’t asked — exactly the kind of thing we hate about politicians, especially Democrats]. And so I just want to be very clear with you and your listeners, because you’re just repeating garbage, potshots at the DNC.
I’m used to taking potshots [and here we go: the standard “I’m the victim” response], by the way. . . . I think the mistake that you and others make is, you know . . . . I just don’t care” (emphasis added).
It is very clear, Ken, that you “just don’t care.” And that really pisses me off.
A Slight Personal Detour, for Emotional Context
I recently overheard a local school official argue that what they love about one of their teachers is that she really doesn’t care what parents think.
To be clear: I am a parent who doesn’t think parent opinions should be the determining factor in the design and organization of a public school education. However, I also know that the teacher in question is nearly universally despised.
I can’t even see my accountant without hearing about how said teacher made her son cry — and about how, you guessed it, said teacher doesn’t care. I even overheard that the teacher had to be coached on how to respond appropriately to parent emails expressing concern. Apparently, she had a habit of replying, “No response required.”
Guuuuuurl. If I received that kind of response to one of my emails (and to be clear, I rarely communicate with teachers — and when I do, it’s typically about the behavior of students that I want, in fact demand, addressed), I’d lose it. Call me a Karen — I just don’t care. And guess the fuck what? As a parent, I don’t have to care.
When you are a person of authority and your “constituents” express their concerns, you do not get to not care — at least not if you want to keep your job. I think this teacher and Ken Martin should take the same bus, and go. Like, goooo the fuck away. Or, if they prefer, take an Uber, take a train . . . . Gurl, choo-choo!
Back to Our Friend Ken
What Ken really, obviously, manifestly does not want to do is release the after-action report describing the error chain that led to Democrats crashing in the 2024 presidential cycle. (“Error chain” is a term used in aviation to describe a series of events that lead to a disaster — no single failure, but several cascading errors that together produce an incident or accident). Here’s another mind-boggling exchange:
Favreau (32:08ff): “It was interesting to learn that you do still plan on releasing an executive summary of the full after-action report. . . . “
Martin (32:28ff): “We’ve been releasing those lessons. They’re the summary. That’s what we’ve been releasing since the beginning of this year. We published them in our Playbook, as I mentioned. We’ll continue to release them. And so, if anyone wants to see some of that work already, go to dnc.org/playbook to see how we’re putting those lessons into action. We’ll continue to do that.”
The reason this exchange is so mind-boggling — such a waste of the calories required to decipher it — is that while Martin is eager to release his interpretations of the raw data (i.e., “the lessons”), he refuses to release the data itself, or even an executive summary of it.
And now we’ve come full circle, back to the authoritarian vibe I mentioned earlier. How can Democrats oppose Trump and offer an alternative to the waywardness of Trumpian politics if we play the same game of concealment?
Moreover, if Martin really wants us to think about the future, and wants to cure us of our “obsession” with the details of the report, then he should just release it. Especially if, as he says, there’s no “smoking gun” in it.
What should enrage every Democrat is Martin’s disdain for us — his obvious contempt for our intellectual ability to read, process, and take data-based action.
Sorry, Ken. There is no future for Democrats in which one person behaves as a king, hoarding the data and demanding our compliance with the lessons he decrees.
You go, gurl. No, I mean: you take the bus, the train, or the Uber, and go home.
That’s a win we can all celebrate.
- Although, I did commit other “errors”: In the first sentence, I initially used exorcised rather than exercised and interparty rather than intraparty. “I” clearly think Ken must be cast out! ↩︎
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