Former Vice President Kamala Harris urged Democrats to find a message that can sustain the party after President Donald Trump leaves office, arguing in a rare Friday speech that leadership had become too comfortable with a “flawed status quo” that she says enabled his return to office.
Harris served as the keynote speaker of the Democratic National Committee’s winter meeting, which began with a “land acknowledgement” and traditional Native American song. After the display and remarks from DNC Chairman Ken Martin and a few other speakers, Harris took the stage in a speech that looked past her 2024 loss to Trump and even next year’s midterm elections.
“We must focus on the midterms, but Democrats, we must also have a clear vision for what comes after the midterms and then after Trump,” she said.
“We need to answer the question, what comes next for our party and our democracy?” Harris continued. “And in so doing, we must be honest that for so many, the American dream has become more of a myth than a reality.”
She went through a laundry list of voter anxieties, including frustration over affordability, artificial intelligence starting to eliminate jobs, and a growing lack of confidence in the political system. Harris argued that Trump won due to seizing on these frustrations, but only gave “empty promises.”
“We must be candid and clear: Donald Trump is not the only source of our problems,” Harris said. “He and the rise of the MAGA movement, I believe, are a symptom of a failed system that is the result of years of outsourcing and offshoring, financial deregulation, growing income inequality, a broken campaign finance system, and endless partisan gridlock all contributing to how we got here today.”
“So as we plan for what comes after this administration, we cannot afford to be nostalgic for what was, in fact, a flawed status quo and a system that failed so many,” she added.
Harris concluded her speech with a broad vision of what she thinks the party should stand for, leaning into a theme of “civic renewal.”
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“To reinstate a sense of civic solidarity,” she said, “we should provide more opportunities to perform national service, and we must invest in public education, public spaces, and ambitious national projects that remind us of what we can achieve together, and that the strength of a pluralistic society requires that we embrace our differences with more, with more than just tolerance, but with mutual respect and trust, with the belief that, though we are different, each of our fellow citizens is a neighbor. These are the values that I believe must guide our project of civic renewal.”
Harris’s speech comes as she leaves the door open to another presidential run in 2028, in what is set to be a crowded Democratic primary. 2028 hopefuls are investing most of their energy in boosting Democratic candidates in the 2026 midterm elections, and Harris notably campaigned for a Democratic candidate in Tennessee’s special election last month.
