In a 2007 interview, retired General Wesley Clark revealed that the Pentagon had a plan to “take out seven countries in five years”—Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran. Over the following two decades, the first six were bombed, destabilized, or collapsed into civil war.

One of the more entertaining political stories of the last few months has been the Democratic Party’s ongoing efforts to determine why it lost the 2024 election and what it needs to do differently to avoid similar failures in the future. After losing the presidency and both houses of Congress, it’s, of course, reasonable for the party to explore what they could have done better. What’s entertaining, though, is how bad they’ve been at it.