When prominent Democrats speak, sensible Americans often must laugh to keep from cringing.
And no Democrat has elicited this response with more regularity than has Vice President Kamala Harris.
On Tuesday, Harris appeared on MSNBC’s “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” and delivered 45 seconds of pure word salad.
“You know, every election cycle we talk about this is the most election of our lifetime. Lawrence, this one is,” Harris said in a clip posted to the social media platform X by RNC Research.
She called 2024 “the most election.” The printed word, in fact, does not do the comment full justice. It sounded even worse than it looks.
Another politician, with a solid command of language, for instance, might have given a similar version of Harris’ answer. But that version would have included a pause, air quotes or something to signify what the speaker meant by the superlative “most” — most important, most decisive, most contentious, etc.
Harris, however, made no pause and offered no explanation. She simply called 2024 “the most election.”
“Kamala Harris: ‘This is the most election of our lifetime,’” the RNC Research post summarized.
Kamala Harris: “This is the most election of our lifetime” pic.twitter.com/aNg7JNIqle
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 20, 2023
During the Reconstruction Era, Republican Gov. Jacob Cox of Ohio described Democratic President Andrew Johnson in withering terms that could easily apply to Harris, with only a pronoun change.
“He is obstinate without being firm, self-opinionated without being capable of systematic thinking, combative and pugnacious without being courageous,” Cox said, as quoted in the book “The Reconstruction Presidents” by Arizona State University history professor Brooks D. Simpson.
Then Cox summed it up in seven disdainful words.
“He is always worse than you expect,” he said.
Harris’ public appearances inspire Cox-like reactions.
Somehow, she always falls short of even the lowest expectations.
“This one is the most election of our lifetime. There’s never been an election this most election,” one X user tweeted in mockery.
This one is the most election of our lifetime. There’s never been an election this most election.
— MOABB (@RealSpaniel1989) December 20, 2023
If Harris had stopped at “most election,” the interview might have reached only her usual depths of absurdity.
Alas, she continued.
“We are literally talking about people who are attempting to divide our country in the most crude, frankly, and profound way,” the vice president said.
Harris then treated viewers to a grotesque parody of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “four freedoms” speech.
“We are talking about those who are intent and purposeful to, to attack fundamental freedoms,” she said.
In 1941, Roosevelt identified speech, worship, prosperity and safety as the four freedoms at stake in a war-torn world.
Predictably, Harris’ version sounded different.
Is 2024 the most important election of our lifetime?
“Be it the freedom to make a decision about your own body, the freedom to love who you love openly and with pride, the freedom to be free from fear of violence and hate, the freedom to just be — the freedom to just be,” she said.
Wild gesticulations of the hands accompanied the statement as Harris tried coaxing even those nonsensical words from her dull mind.
Meanwhile, social media users cringed.
“As a woman, I am mortified that Kamala Harris is the first female VP. She is an utter embarrassment,” one tweeted.
As a woman, I am mortified that Kamala Harris is the first female VP. She is an utter embarrassment.
— Rhonda Thomas (@RhondaT75962013) December 20, 2023
“Terrible! Embarrassing!” another X user wrote.
Terrible! Embarrassing!
— Alicia (@AliCatStu) December 20, 2023
Even embarrassment and mortification hardly seem adequate as responses to Harris. She requires more.
And yet, one hardly knows how much more, for she is always worse than you expect.
