https://arab.news/2xssc
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.
