Kamala Harris Is Not The Future— From Inevitable To Unelectable

107 Days Of Losing: Form Without Fire

We had some good news and some bad news regarding Kamala Harris this week. The good news: she’s not running for governor of California. The bad news: she wants to run for president again, despite there being no demand among Democrats for her too do that and despite polling that shows her with support from less than a third of Democratic voters. Given the weak bench— Gavin Newsom, Pete Buttigieg, JB Pritker, Rahm Emanuel, Gina Raimondo— she could still win the nomination and if she does… get ready for President Vance— and I don’t mean Vivian. (NOTE: the only progressive seriously contesting the race at this point, working to build a multiracial coalition committed to a working class agenda, is Ro Khanna and he has to get much better known across the country as the media continues to push “moderate” hacks like Newsom, Buttigieg and, now, Harris.)

Appearing on CNN Wednesday, Democratic strategist David Axelrod said Kamala is clearly setting herself up for another presidential run. “She will begin as the polling leader in any race for president,” he announced, “just by dint of having been the nominee the last time… But a lot of Democrats want to turn the page on all of that and look forward, and so it‘s not going to be easy for her.” Last night she was on with Colbert— her first interview since she blew the 2024 election. And she has a memoir, 107 Days, about the campaign coming out September 23.

She’s never won a single primary— not in 2020 nor in 2024— and this time she’ll face a very skeptical Democratic electorate that wants a winner. And it’s not like she ever in her whole tedious, consultant-driven career emerged from a grassroots movement, a progressive insurgency or a national draft movement. She was manufactured in a lab of elite donor circles and Silicon Valley hype, always positioned as the future— because she looked like the future— not because she fought for it or was ever even part of the movement towards it. She failed to excite a base in 2020, dropped out before a single vote was cast, and in 2024, lost what should have been a slam-dunk election against an unhinged felonious autocrat.

Her defenders will say, “It wasn’t her fault. She was handed a mess. Biden waited too long to pass the baton.” Fair. But then again, who made her the heir apparent in the first place? Not the voters. Not the base. Not the organizers. Not even the donors this time around, many of whom held their noses and cut checks because they feared the alternative.

Her 2024 campaign was a case study in triangulation gone awry. She was terrified of alienating anyone, so she inspired no one. She flubbed key interviews, purposefully dodged every opportunity to take bold stands and failed to rally young voters, progressives or Latinos in any meaningful way. Meanwhile, Trump ran circles around her, aided by a media that was more interested in her laugh than her policies— and by her own unwillingness to define herself on her own terms.

107 Days is supposed to be her What Happened, but the real story is this: she never figured out what she stood for… and the voters noticed. Even now, as Democrats hunger for a compelling alternative to Trumpism, Harris still talks like someone who's running for student body president at Howard, not for the most powerful office in the world. Safe. Rehearsed. Vague. May I be blunt? She’s already lost the easiest election Democrats will have in a generation. We cannot afford to roll those dice again. It’s time for new blood, new ideas and a new generation of leaders who aren’t afraid to fight like hell for working people— leaders who don’t check a box, but who build a movement rooted in justice and solidarity. That means confronting the issues Kamala Harris has consistently avoided or watered down. We need candidates willing to champion Medicare for All, not timid tweaks to a for-profit system that continues to bankrupt families. We need a real Green New Deal, one that treats the climate crisis as the emergency it is, while creating millions of union jobs through public investment.

We need to declare housing a human right, push back against Wall Street landlords and against AIPAC and Netanyahu and finally address the unaffordability crisis crushing working people across the country. It’s time to stop cozying up to tech executives and instead fight for labor rights, union power, and workplace democracy. And when it comes to foreign policy, Democrats must show moral clarity, especially in standing against the U.S. government's complicity in genocide and occupation, including our blind support for Netanyahu’s regime. The party must also abandon its addiction to militarized border policy and begin building an immigration system rooted in humanity, dignity, and fairness. And none of this can happen without taxing the rich, breaking up monopolies, and ending the culture of deference to corporate power that defines the current Democratic establishment. These are the fights Harris refused to take on but they are the fights that matter and the ones that could actually defeat fascism, energize the base, and change the country.