Kamala Harris teases 2028 run, tells allies that she is "keeping her options open".
The Democratic Party ought to listen to Bernie Sanders for once. The message Harris is sending by spending her time relaxing in Hawaii after losing to a fascist, as we really haven't heard anything from her since she lost three weeks ago, is rather unfortunate. Speaks volumes that immediately after Sanders lost in 2016 and 2020 (and when the Dems lost in 2024), he immediately hit the ground running on how to keep his coalition together, with messages such as "not me, us", articulating what to do and what the best shot is moving forward. Because he understood that he ran a political movement, and wasn't just an interchangeable pawn with no real positions that was fronted by the DNC. He recognizes that just because you lose doesn't mean the job is over. Harris knows at this point she doesn't have her own, unique message and her own popularity largely relies on the salience of the Democratic party; she lacks a selfless interest in the public good that we need to overcome fascism. While Sanders is sometimes accused of sounding repetitive in his speeches, this can actually be a virtue, as it demonstrates that he has a consistent message he believes in, unlike Harris' campaign in which her messaging seems to be constantly tested and refashioned by party consultants and focus groups to in a lofty attempt to be perfectly tailored to a given audience. It would be nice to see her continuing to be a loud, aggressive advocate for the political positions she ostensibly believes in, but she walked back a bunch of these during her campaign and mostly ran on the status quo. If Harris' bid of public service ends once her campaign does, yet she still has future ambitions, then quite frankly she doesn't have what it takes to be the candidate. Sanders didn't let it stop him; heck, even Trump didn't- he leveraged very famously not shutting up after decisively losing an election to win again in 2024.
The party ought to accept that the entire political climate is trending populist, not just the GOP, and the "adults in the room" or "back to normalcy" approach just won't be enough for long term victory. In the long term, the Democratic party will not be able to keep ahold of the country and its whims unless they understand that what people want to hear is bold, populist, transformative messaging. Part of where the 2024 campaign went wrong was that it wasn't fundamentally different than Biden's 2020 campaign, and Biden won in 2020 mostly because of Trump's own incompetence and unpopularity especially brought about by COVID, not due to the people so fervently longing for octogenerian, milquetoast centrist leadership. If nothing changes, this is the only way Harris would eke out a victory in 2028, Trump once again damaging the country so dramatically that the GOP becomes deeply unpopular, and while a Democratic victory would be great under any circumstances, I fear the party will continue to learn the wrong lessons and become utterly inept at defeating fascism. Additionally, it would be beneficial for the Democrats to poll candidate favorability based on popularity of the entire population- another area where Bernie shined, as he was favorable not just among Democrats but also independents and even some Trump voters, while Harris did not perform any better with these groups.
