With Kamala Harris sending up trial balloons for another presidential run while Donald Trump’s team openly plots an unconstitutional third term, Fintan O’Toole takes to the Review’s November 20 issue to read 107 Days, Harris’s account of the last time she and Trump ran against each other. “Selling a book that is essentially an autopsy report,” writes O’Toole, “feels at best pointless, at worst tasteless.”

The uselessness of the book, moreover, bespeaks a deeper problem in the Democratic Party:

Against Trump’s rampaging amorality, the Democrats offered a bleeding-heart sympathy. (“The scale of suffering,” Harris said of Gaza in her acceptance speech at the convention, “is heartbreaking.”) Being the party that feels the world’s pain is not a good answer to a president who invites his supporters to share the unalloyed joy of being able to inflict it.

Below, alongside O’Toole’s essay, are six articles about the Democrats’ recent failures in the face of rampaging amorality.

Fintan O’Toole
The Lingering Delusion

Kamala Harris’s memoir 107 Days succeeds at least in distilling the evasions and weaknesses of the modern Democratic Party.

Fintan O’Toole
Forced Amnesia

The metamorphosis of J. D. Vance from economic realist to champion of Trump’s grievance-fueled politics reveals how little Democrats have done to connect with working-class Americans.

—May 29, 2025

Fintan O’Toole
The Protection Racket

For his supporters, Donald Trump’s misogynist attacks against Kamala Harris turn his own history as a predator into an asset.

—October 27, 2024

Joseph O’Neill
All Bets Are Off

“Must the onus of opposition again be borne by our concerned citizenry, now exhausted and dispirited after nearly a decade of extraordinary civic effort? Who can they look to for leadership and inspiration? Barack Obama? Mark Cuban? Who have issued statements congratulating Donald Trump on his victory?”

—November 9, 2024

Patricia J. Williams
Expanding the Vocabulary

“Kamala Harris alone has been skunk-sprayed by Republicans as a ‘bitch,’ a ‘monster,’ ‘pathetic,’ ‘so fucking bad,’ ‘totally unlikable,’ ‘real garbage,’ ‘trash,’ ‘trashy,’ ‘trash bag,’ deadly and duplicitous, ‘low IQ,’ simultaneously too weak and too strong, ‘propped up’ by sinister forces yet single-handedly staging a ‘coup.’”

—November 7, 2024

Lara Putnam
Pennsylvania’s Grassroots Revival

Since 2017, middle-aged women have been rebuilding the state’s Democratic party infrastructure, not just in its liberal suburbs but in its rural Republican strongholds.

—October 18, 2024

Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld
Late to the Party

In the aftermath of this summer’s scramble to replace Joe Biden, Democrats will need to confront why they had such trouble thinking and acting as a party—even when it mattered most.

—July 30, 2024

Image from Sunday Night Movies by Leanne Shapton, 2013

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