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When political memoirs start to read like confessions, it usually means a party is in trouble. That is where the Democrats find themselves today. Within months of losing the 2024 election to Republican Donald Trump, two books have tried to explain the collapse.
The first, “Original Sin” by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson, was released in May and exposed how party insiders and the press conspired to hide the decline in President Joe Biden’s health. The second, former Vice President Kamala Harris’ “107 Days,” released last month, describes what happened after Biden finally stepped aside and how she failed to rescue the campaign. Together, they reveal a movement consumed by denial, blame and exhaustion.
Harris’ memoir was intended as a story of persistence: a vice president handed an impossible task, forced to rebuild a collapsing candidacy in barely three months. Instead, it feels like an indictment of her colleagues, her advisers and the culture of self-protection that has come to define modern democratic politics. The prose is polished, the tone personal, but beneath the surface lies bitterness and disbelief.
The former vice president opens her book by criticizing her former boss’ decision to delay his withdrawal from the 2024 election contest, calling it “recklessness.” Yet, at the same time, she insists that she never doubted his ability to lead. That contradiction captures the Democrats’ larger dilemma, torn between telling the truth and staying loyal to their leader. Harris paints herself as the loyal deputy who followed orders and was betrayed by the president’s indecision. However, she avoids asking the harder question: Did her own silence make her part of the cover-up that “Original Sin” exposed? By refusing to confront that truth, she mirrors the party’s struggle to face its own failures.
The same pattern runs through every chapter of the book. Whenever things went wrong, the blame always fell on someone else. When her immigration policies failed to deliver results, she claimed her staff did not properly explain her vision to the public. When her approval ratings plummeted, she argued that the media twisted her words or ignored the full story. When major donors began to walk away, she pointed to bad timing and external circumstances.
Harris’ words reopen old wounds and remind readers how deeply split her party has become.
Dalia Al-Aqidi
In each case, Harris avoids taking personal responsibility, rewriting events to present herself as the misunderstood leader rather than the one who made poor decisions. The story she tells is not about what truly happened — it is about how she wants history to remember her. What she cannot bring herself to admit is that the American people did not lose interest because of bad communication or unfair coverage, they stopped listening because they no longer believed her.
One of the most talked-about parts of Harris’ book focuses on the people she considered as potential running mates. She said she thought about choosing Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg but decided that a ticket of a Black woman and a gay man would have been “too risky.” That remark sparked a backlash and Buttigieg publicly denied that such a conversation ever took place.
Harris also describes Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as “too ambitious,” a comment that frustrated many in the Democratic Party, who saw it as a warning aimed at a future rival. Instead of helping to bring Democrats together after years of division, Harris’ words reopen old wounds and remind readers how deeply split her party has become.
One major flaw stood out in Harris’ book. “107 Days” reads less like an honest reflection and more like a lawyer’s defense, an attempt by a politician to justify every decision rather than learn from them. Reviewers have described it as a long list of complaints, full of explanations and excuses but short on humility. Even when she tries to add humor, her words sound tense and defensive, as if still arguing her case.
The few personal sections, about her mother’s influence or her pride in breaking barriers, feel disconnected from the rest of the story. They seem to have been added to make the book feel more human and emotional but instead they only highlight how cold and guarded the overall tone remains.
To add insult to injury, her book tour has done little to improve how people see her. In New York, Gaza protesters disrupted one of her events, accusing her of hypocrisy for trying to distance herself from Biden’s foreign policy decisions. The confrontation drew national headlines and made her appear out of touch with both sides of the debate.
In Los Angeles, she tried to lighten the mood by joking that the Trump administration had been “crazy,” but the comment backfired when the White House mocked her trademark laugh in response. What was meant to be a comeback tour turned into another round of controversy. Instead of rebuilding her image or winning back trust, it only fueled her critics and deepened the public’s doubts about her credibility.
What makes “107 Days” stand out is not what Harris wrote, but what she left unsaid. There is almost no honest reflection on why Democrats lost the support of working-class voters, why inflation and border insecurity had destroyed public trust or why so many moderates felt abandoned by their party. She avoids addressing how her message failed to connect with everyday Americans — the same voters who once saw her as a sign of progress and possibility. Instead of examining those hard truths, the book focuses on defending her record and revising history. In the silence where self-reflection should have been lies the real reason for her defeat.
For Democrats, the timing could not have been worse. The party is divided, its leaders uncertain and its message confused. This memoir, instead of closing a painful chapter, reopens the same wounds that “Original Sin” revealed. It reminds voters that the Democratic National Convention establishment still has not learned one of democracy’s simplest lessons: humility.
By the time last year’s election came, Americans had seen enough. They were tired of excuses, tired of being misled and tired of politicians who blamed everyone but themselves. That fatigue turned into clarity in November 2024, when they chose change and voted for Trump.
- Dalia Al-Aqidi is executive director at the American Center for Counter Extremism