LOS ANGELES – Kamala Harris warned fellow Democrats on Friday that the American dream is dying and that her party shares the blame, a bracing reality check for the party following a string of Democratic victories.
In her most expansive diagnosis yet of what she cast as the country’s broken political system, the former vice president told members of the Democratic National Committee here that repair would require more than moving past President Donald Trump.
“We must be honest that for so many, the American dream has become more of a myth than reality,” she said.
Harris, the failed presidential contender who has been criss-crossing the country on a multi-city book tour, built on the bleak message she delivered earlier this year in an appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” her first public comments describing the political system as “broken.”
“Both parties have failed to hold the public's trust,” she said in her Friday evening speech, drawing scattered claps from the crowd. “Government is viewed as fundamentally unable to meet the needs of its people. In these and so many other ways, the people feel that the very institutions that were designed to support them have failed them. They are not wrong.”
Her comments came after Harris had received a warm ovation from members of the DNC, who gathered in her hometown for their winter meeting and chanted “KA-MA-LA” as she took the stage.
But after thanking activists for their work and touting Democrats’ recent wins, including a shoutout to New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, Harris turned to a gloomy appraisal of the nation’s political health and urged Democrats not to solely focus on next year’s elections.
“Democrats, we must also have a clear vision for what comes after the midterms and then after Trump,” she said.
An audience member shouted “you!” in response, a nod to a potential 2028 presidential run.
Harris made no explicit references to another White House bid. But her assessment of what has gone wrong, and her calls for a “civic renewal” to course correct, served as the kind of rhetoric that could underpin a future candidacy, hinting at how the lifelong politician who reached the heights of the Democratic establishment could attempt to rebrand herself as a change agent.
Harris pointed to a number of culprits behind the degraded American dream, including job displacement from artificial intelligence, divisive social media networks and an “excess concentration of power” among a handful of elites. She articulated a list of values that she said could restore voters’ trust, including harnessing technology in the public interest and treating with dignity all kinds of work.
“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 said. “We cannot advocate for, nor settle for, a simple return to what existed in the past.”
Many Americans share Harris’ grim assessment, with nearly half, 46 percent, agreeing with the statement that “The American dream no longer exists” in the October edition of The POLITICO Poll. Only about one in four Americans, 26 percent, said they disagreed.
Democrats were also more likely than Republicans to agree that the American dream no longer exists. A slight 51 percent majority of 2024 Harris voters agreed with the statement, which did not define “American dream.” Younger Americans were also particularly likely to say the American dream no longer exists.
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