Each day seems to bring a fresh round of reports that the Democratic National Committee is beset by turmoil, confusion and infighting.

I’d be more worried about the state of the party if it wasn’t.

Rebuilding after last year’s Democratic shutout, which saw virtually every corner of the country moving toward the right and voters handing all the levers of power in Washington to the Republicans, was never going to be easy or painless.

It requires facing up to where the party, and its factions, have fallen out of step with the country — and effectively channeling the forces of opposition that have been building against President Donald Trump and his vast, overreaching agenda.

As the reckoning has begun, party Chairman Ken Martin, a volatile and largely unknown figure who was elected to the job in February, has come under more than his share of fire.

He had an ugly public battle with David Hogg, the 25-year-old activist who, despite his role as a “vice chair of the DNC,” was putting together an operation to challenge party incumbents. Their dispute was punctuated by an embarrassing leak of the audio from a Zoom meeting of DNC officers in which Martin told Hogg: “You essentially destroyed any chance I have to show the leadership that I need to.” Shortly after, Hogg gave up his DNC title, which was essentially an honorific that carried no power.

Separately, two of the nation’s most prominent labor leaders — Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, and Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — declined Martin’s renewal of their appointments as at-large DNC members, after Martin declined to name them to the Rules and Bylaws Committee, which sets the procedures by which the party nominates its presidential candidates.

Yes, all of this has been distracting, and it fits neatly into a shopworn “Democrats in disarray” narrative. It also shows how much animosity still lingers from the pitched battle this year for the DNC chairmanship between Martin and Ben Wikler, who was then the chairman of the Wisconsin state party.

Of the two, Wikler was the more dynamic figure and carried a higher national profile.

He had been endorsed by House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (New York), Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (New York) and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (California), and had received six-figure support from billionaire LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and George Soros’s Democracy PAC. But Martin won because he had a loyal base of support from state party officials that he had built over his years as chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

What is going on now represents little more than what one DNC veteran described to me as “small ball” and an inside struggle over “perch and relevance” within the operation.

There have always been tensions in the party between state organizations and the Washington establishment.

Martin has made no secret where his loyalties lie, and announced that the DNC is investing $1 million a month in state parties.

In reality, there are only two real benchmarks for the DNC: how well it raises money and how wisely it spends it. Last week, it announced it had hauled in $40 million under Martin’s first four months as chairman, which was a record and came largely from small donors. But it still has some work to do in wooing back big-money patrons, many of whom were disillusioned and disappointed after seeing their investments go for naught in 2024.

None of the intramural turbulence at the DNC should overshadow the fact that there is plenty of promising news these days for Democrats. The party has been consistently overperforming in special elections this year.

In April, it delivered a double-digit victory in Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court election, in which billionaire Elon Musk had spent $25 million on the other side, making it a referendum on Trump’s agenda.

And then there was the massive turnout this month at the rallies in more than 2,000 cities that were dubbed the “No Kings Nationwide Day of Defiance.” It was unmistakable evidence of how much energy there is to be tapped by Democrats as they prepare for the midterm elections.

None of which, however, is a sure sign that the Democrats have found their footing. The harder job of resurrecting the party must be done by its congressional leadership, which has not been sounding a clear and certain message. And, moving forward, its direction will be set by the presidential candidates who begin to step forward in the midterm elections and in the days after.

The DNC can help by bringing resources to the table, and acting as a fair arbiter as the Democrats struggle to find and redefine their identity.

But the bigger change must happen outside the confines of the party machinery. No one should have expected it to come about smoothly, and the fact that it isn’t is probably the best sign that change is underway.

Karen Tumulty is an associate editor and columnist covering national politics for The Washington Post.