Harris-Walz — Painful, Bad Sitcom

Well, the Democrats have allowed Kamala Harris to come out of the basement a little bit, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to take any tough questions from reporters. No, she’s still not doing any interviews that might expose weakness. She appears at some campaign events to give a stump speech and then retreats to the studio to film cringe-worthy canned exchanges with her running mate, the eminently weird and abrasive Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. These strange videos and the weird art all are aimed at painting her as a relatable savior in the same way Barack Obama’s messianic campaigns did for him. What we now have is a presidential campaign operating as a tired and struggling sitcom.

The stale premise and bad writing are getting so tiresome that the writers this week haven’t been able to keep the scripts consistent at all. They’ve bounced from simply copying policy points from the Trump campaign to announcing that items on the hard left’s Christmas list will be waiting under the tree if only we elect Vice President Cackles. Concerning the only thing that they really have control over (their own Democratic National Convention), they are making sure that their reputation for encouraging civilizational suicide in the name of “freedom” is still intact. Chicago businesses are already boarding up. Let’s hope the American people have the good sense to make sure the Harris-Walz sitcom is canceled. 

As is obvious from anyone who’s listened to her speeches or interviews, there is a reason why nobody on the Democratic side wants this person to talk to reporters. She simply is incapable of any kind of high- or even mid-level conversation about anything without becoming incoherent, saying the quiet parts out loud, or bursting into her high decibel laughter. Hence the strategy of having her give the same stump speech over and over.

This doesn’t excite most people, however, so the Harris campaign, which now is being run by Obama’s people, has decided to create a fictional character that, much like Obama, is both relatable and, well, amazing. Much like Obama, this character is offset by a supposedly salt of the earth dorky white guy playing second fiddle to the amazing one but also acting tough to convince Democrats that they are still the party of ordinary people.

The X (Twitter) user, Cynical Publius, a retired military officer summed it up well in a post this week. “It is increasingly obvious to me that they are trying to play out the tired trope of every TV sitcom of the last 20 years. You know what I am talking about; it’s the goofy, incompetent supporting male character who always has to be saved from himself by the sassy, super-woman female lead character.” He went on to explain what he thinks is the reasoning behind this “deliberate rhetorical tactic”: namely, its appeal to the “winebox Karens and emasculated Evans who constitute the Democratic base.”  

Those who have had the misfortune to watch the little video where they introduce each other have been treated to the meet-cute account of how even though Tim didn’t return the first call, they eventually connected and got together. Maybe it’s even true, but it seems as though this was ripped straight from the story J. D. Vance told about how he missed the phone call from Donald Trump and had to take the call later when he got to his hotel room.

The rest of it is just as inauthentic. They talk about what music they like. Instead of telling everyone how she listens to rap as she did in the 2020 campaign, Harris focuses on Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder, while Tim talks about Bruce Springsteen. They tell each other how wonderful the other is. What’s funny about the videos is that Tim Walz is actually more fluent than Kamala. He plays his role as the old white guy Harris calls “Coach” and gives sports metaphors for how the country can get away from “division.” It’s pretty shocking to anybody who lived in Minnesota during the George Floyd Riots and Covid. He sure wasn’t into bringing people together then—even if Harris in this interview repeats the bogus phrase of 2020, “We’re all in this together.” But we also get to hear about how Tim Walz eats “white people tacos” without any kind of “flavor,” while Kamala Harris announces she is the “first Vice President to grow chili peppers.” (At least we’ve found an actual accomplishment for her.) She is the sassy woman of color—and white people have to be shown to be colorless even if they are ok to be around.

It is a horrible show, no matter how much Democrats are pretending to fall in love with this woman they made drop out of the presidential race in 2019. That there is no substance to it beyond the growing of chili peppers may be one reason why her policy proposals range from copying from over Donald Trump’s and J. D. Vance’s shoulders to what the New York Post has called “Kamunism.”

That’s right. Harris spent much of the last two weeks proposing to ban taxes on tips, secure the border, and propose a bigger child tax credit than the one promoted by J. D. Vance. Many onlookers were wondering if she was about to declare that she’d Make America Great Again or perhaps build a wall. But these echoes of Republican positions were at least something concrete since even the New York Times talked about her “strategic vagueness” before she announced her economic plans.

Yet when she did announce her new plans, she claimed that because grocery stores are “price gouging,” she’s going to institute price controls on groceries at the federal level. And because we don’t have a proper supply of houses in the country, she’s going to cut red tape in order to build three million homes and then give every first-time homebuyer $25,000. That price controls would create shortages and make things worse is beyond doubt. That a Democrat could or would cut red tape around housing is pretty unlikely. That with this homebuyer gift, home prices would go up by $25,000 is also certain. Geraldo Rivera spoke out against her. Even the Washington Post editorial board wrote a piece titled, “The times demand serious economic ideas. Harris provides gimmicks.” Commie gimmicks, sure. But gimmicks all the same.

When you’ve lost both the New York Times and Washington Post as a Democrat, you know you have serious problems. Perhaps that’s why the Democratic Party is doubling down on their anti-child ideas. The announcement this weekend that the Democratic National Convention in Chicago will feature free vasectomies and abortions is about the most destructive and absurd thing one can come up with. Are people attending a political convention going to take time out for such things? It’s truly bizarre stuff. But abortion is their political sacrament.

Perhaps that’s why the Obama script writers have been doubling down on the mythology angle. Shepherd Fairey, who did the famous Obama “Hope” poster, has created one for Harris that has her looking into the distance and says “Forward.” Oddly enough, as a number of people have pointed out, the poster makes Harris look like conservative actress Patricia Heaton. And maybe that indicates the problem.

Sitcom characters have to be cookie cutter characters who have one or two known traits or catchphrases. As the Harris-Walz campaign is forced to present anything beyond this little picture, the candidates start to falter. 

Even those rooting for her and trying to buy into the Obama-like savior idea seem to have somebody else in mind when they’re doing so. This extraordinarily bad sitcom we’re all seeing is both boring and painful to watch. That’s because the only substance it has is derivative, crazy, or destructive. It’s likely that the Democratic viewers are hoping she’ll make it through for a few seasons, but they aren’t likely to believe it’s a certainty. They’d rather turn the channel themselves. Let’s hope most Americans do.

David P. Deavel teaches at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. A past Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute, he is a Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. Follow him on X @davidpdeavel.