Harvard Produces Political Losers

In the lead-up to Election Day, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.

I remembered the momentum Vice President Kamala Harris built back in July after President Joe Biden withdrew from the race. I remembered the energy she tapped into when she first promised “we are not going back.”

But somewhere along the way, all of that hope vanished. Rather than inspiring change, Harris’ campaign felt like a spark fizzling out. And President-elect Donald Trump’s decisive victory proved, once again, that our liberal institutions desperately failed to meet the moment.

Harris ran an impressive campaign. In just 107 days, she raised over $1 billion, capitalized on Trump’s blunders, and developed a disciplined ground game. And yet, familiar warning signs appeared: overconfidence, cultural blind spots, and a striking dismissal of populist discontent across America.

These signs reflected the deeper issues I’ve seen within elite political culture, especially at places like Harvard.

In 2016, Trump’s rise was partly a visceral backlash against a rising tide of liberal elitism. I watched as my neighbors and classmates in South Carolina flocked to Trump’s rallies, shared memes mocking liberal “meltdowns,” and cheered on his vision for ending “American carnage.” For many, Trump was an abrasive, unvarnished voice in a society that had otherwise left them behind.

To best counter this reactionary surge, we must understand what lies at the root of it: a desire for genuine change that would actually address working-class needs misdirected toward an extremist project that scapegoats immigrants and other marginalized groups.

I saw my admission to Harvard as an opportunity to learn how a generally liberal university prepared to confront these roots. Instead, when I arrived here, I found myself at an institution that teaches students to prioritize power over purpose.

Elite institutions like Harvard have crafted a brand of careerism that drains America of its desperately needed progressive spirit. On this campus, authenticity is practically a weakness. Students will pursue lucrative opportunities even at the expense of their own values or interests.

We lose sight of the value of imaginative political visions and instead strengthen our credentials and exercise moderation. The result: a stale, hypocritical liberalism that conservatives exploit and working people reject.

Harris’ campaign didn’t fail because of a breakdown in logistics or lack of funding; it failed because it didn’t offer anything new, and what it did offer was contradictory.

Her advisers — some of the same minds that doomed Hillary Clinton and eventually Joe Biden — urged Harris and Tim Walz to moderate their views, court conservative support from figures like the Cheneys, and cling to Biden’s unpopular stance on Palestine. The campaign sought to appeal to everyone but failed to inspire anyone. Many voters either stayed home or chose the candidate who offered crude but seemingly tangible solutions.

These ill-advised advisers are products of institutions like Harvard.

Harvard is a breeding ground for political losers. It seems that after every election, the Institute of Politics and its ilk release a fresh wave of liberal elites into the political arena. They go on to become the architects of the Democratic Party, crafting cautious campaigns aimed at an imagined center while sidelining policies that could truly mobilize people and change the kind of material conditions that turned people to Trump’s conservative populism.

When these campaigns fail, there’s never self-reflection or structural change — there’s only the next cohort, ready to climb the political ladder. It’s this same arrogance that led Joe Biden to hold out on his campaign for a second term until the last tenable moment and drove Harris to craft a campaign indistinguishable from Biden’s dying one.

The irony is glaring. Harvard, a bastion of intellectual liberalism, continues to produce a political class that can’t win because they can’t offer anything fresh or bold. Sure, our graduates can recite Democratic talking points on cue. But when you ask them what they stand for — the freedoms they’ll defend, the causes they genuinely care about — they hesitate.

Harvard churns out polished speakers, networkers, and strategists who have mastered the mechanics of campaigns. But its graduates remain out of touch with the people and values those campaigns should serve.

Democrats must rediscover the path of the authentic, pragmatic progressive. “Authenticity” means standing firmly for issues that matter to people, especially when those issues might challenge the establishment. It’s the courage to push against the status quo, even when it’s politically inconvenient. Without this courage, these institutions produce an elite, sanitized, and detached brand of liberalism that is ripe for figures like Trump to exploit.

Harvard institutions like the IOP should also engage more deeply in public service — as in, genuine community work and the relentless pursuit of justice. What if Harvard didn’t just prepare students to win elections but win back the trust of a country disillusioned with ineffective politics? What if authenticity, empathy, and vision were at the center of our educational values — and our campaigns?

So let’s slow down with the Washington internships. We must immerse ourselves in diverse tactics including and beyond electoral politics and support bottom-up organizing. This approach could teach Harvard students more than any Capitol Hill selfie or policy seminar.

In the end, Harvard students will go on to lead impressive careers. They’ll work for top law firms, climb the corporate ladder, or even run for political office. Some might even win. But if we are to do better, we must break free of the typical Harvard approach — often performative and self-serving — and root ourselves in communities to share a renewed vision of what our country can be. Because if we don’t change, we’ll keep producing political losers. And on Election Day, we saw what that yields.

If we’re willing to change, though, perhaps Harvard and the next generation of leaders it creates can finally live up to the ideals they espouse.

Clyve Lawrence ’25-’27, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a Government concentrator in Adams House.