This Star-Studded Progressive Event Featuring James Talarico and Kamala Harris Was a Complete Flop

A "powerful day of organizing, learning, and civic renewal" that nobody showed up to is about the most on-brand thing the Democratic Party could produce right now. This wasn't some grassroots meetup that got a little disappointing turnout. It was a curated, star-studded event with James Talarico and Kamala Harris headlining, in a friendly college town, and it still couldn't fill the seats. That's not bad luck. That's a diagnosis.

Harris has now had over a year to figure out why 2024 happened, and instead of an answer she's out doing the same thing that didn't work the first time: showing up, saying the right words, and expecting enthusiasm to materialize because the cause is righteous. Talarico gets credit in some circles for being an earnest, Bible-quoting Democrat who can talk to people outside the coastal comfort zone. But earnestness plus a former vice president isn't a movement. It's a photo op looking for a crowd.

The deeper problem is that "civic renewal" language. Democrats keep talking about democracy and organizing in the abstract, as if the fix for losing working people is a better seminar. Austin is about as favorable a room as this party gets in Texas, and even there the draw wasn't there. If the flagship youth event in a blue-dot city can't pack the house with a vice president on the marquee, that tells you something real about where the energy in this party actually is, and it isn't in the rooms they keep booking.