Former Vice President Kamala Harris offered a rebuke to both Democrats and Republicans during a recent speech, delivering a warning that Americans feel betrayed by their political institutions.
During comments she made Friday to members of the Democratic National Committee, Harris warned that the American dream is dying — and that Democrats had a hand in its demise.
“We must be honest that for so many, the American dream has become more of a myth than reality,” she told the assembled Democrats.
She noted that the growing costs of food, housing, transportation and energy have sparked an affordability crisis. President Donald Trump and his administration have insisted there is no such thing, and messaging suggesting otherwise has been deemed by his camp as a “Democratic hoax.”
This isn't Harris's first time critiquing the nation's political institutions. Earlier this year, she told Stephen Colbert on CBS’s The Late Show that American politics are “broken.” She has offered similar criticisms during her recent book tour, and did so again Friday.
“Both parties have failed to hold the public’s trust,” she told the DNC members.
“Government is viewed as fundamentally unable to meet the needs of its people,” she added. “In these and in so many other ways, the people feel that the very institutions that were designed to support them have failed them. They are not wrong.”
She also said Trump has tried to cast himself as a “change agent” in the United States “but with empty promises to the American people.”
“Under his leadership, we all know prices are up, inflation is up, unemployment is up, healthcare costs for millions of Americans are about to double,” she said. “But we must be candid and clear; Donald Trump is not the only source of our problems.”
She said that Trump and his Make America Great Again movement are “symptoms 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.”
Harris then called on Democrats to have a “clear vision for what comes after the midterms and then after Trump.”
Someone in the audience yelled out “you,” suggesting Harris might run again after her previous failed attempts to secure the presidency. Harris has not given any indication that she plans to run for office in 2028.
While discussing the “American dream,” Harris pointed to a number of factors that have helped to erode the cultural expectation that — through work and good citizenship — people can achieve prosperity in the country.
She listed job displacement from artificial intelligence, division caused by social media, and a “concentration of power:” among the world’s elites as elements eroding the American dream.
But she also warned her fellow Democrats that simply trying to reset the clock back to a time before Trump was not going to be enough to fix what’s broken.
“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.”
A Politico poll in October found that almost half — 46 percent — of respondents agreed with the statement that “the American dream no longer exists.”
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