lay that groundwork for the next election

The fact that "next election" to you means the presidential election is very telling. There are more progressive candidates penciled on the midterm ballots (let alone the active primaries) than there have been in living memory. And that's not counting local progressive candidates that are already in office from this election cycle.

But to hear everyone talk, anything short of a leftist presidency is a failure in the same way that anything short of a spontaneous revolution isn't worth doing. A milquetoast neolib president shackled by a progressive Congress by far the best option in the realm of possibility.

This is what drives left infighting, a complete disconnect on what's desired and what's possible. Some limitations are just so obvious that I don't know how people ignore them.

• All media is controlled by billionaire corporate interests who have a ton to lose from the left gaining power. The revolution will not be televised and your left political wave will not come through social media. This will not change and you don't have the wallet to fight it.
• Related, there will never be a viable third party no matter how much wishcasting you project. FPTP firmly entrenched the two party system and it would take a herculean reform effort to uproot it. There's a reason that the Republican and Democratic platforms have shifted all over the map since the 1800s, you can't splinter and keep any power.
• Following that, the road map for usurping the DNC has already been shown to us. Power is displaced from the bottom up and a presidency is the last thing captured. Unfortunately, as they act as party of controlled opposition, the fight to disrupt that will be harder than it ever was.
• Finally, the floodgates have been opened to a fascist takeover of the USA. To a certain extent, there's no closing Pandora's box and expectations and plans need to be adjusted for the new world.

So look at those facts and ask simple questions. Can reform by electoralism be attempted in this environment? What is the best chance for harm reduction here? Do the old rules apply in the same way (eg. is not voting blue even an option now)? Can this regime even be removed from office by normal means? What battles will you pick?

If you've really thought through all of that and landed on complaining about Harris and Newsome then I don't know what to say. That is so far down the branch of things we can't change (media narrative control, DNC establishment power, nascent progressive bloc still solidifying) that it's not worth discussing.