Her understanding of policy is transparently less than an inch thick.
Big news in the world of politics: The Democratic nominee finally spoke to the press! Yes, Kamala Harris took her first-ever one-on-one interview with a mainstream-media outlet yesterday afternoon, and don’t be shocked if it’s her last, because I am at a loss to tell you how bad it was.
The interview was with Philadelphia’s local ABC affiliate, and credit to interviewer Brian Taff: He asked straightforward, no-nonsense questions like a professional journalist aware he might be giving Harris the only serious ten minutes of her entire campaign. What Harris did with those ten minutes was cringeworthy beyond belief, revealing every single one of her flaws — her inability to complete a basic sentence or answer even the simplest of questions about policy that haven’t been pre-rehearsed with Philippe Reines for a week in advance. I am only going to print here Taff’s first question to Harris, and then I will simply transcribe for you Harris’s response. May God have mercy on your soul after you read this.
(And I beg of you: Watch the full ten-minute interview. Don’t deny yourself.)
TAFF: At the debate the other night you talked about creating an “opportunity economy” — what if we can drill down on that a little bit. When you talk about bringing down prices and making life more affordable for people, what are one or two specific things you have in mind for that?
HARRIS: Well I’ll start with this. I grew up a middle-class kid. My mother raised my sister and me, she worked very hard. Um, she was able to finally save up enough money to buy our first house when I was a teenager. I grew up in a community of hardworking people, construction workers, and nurses and teachers, and I try to explain to some people who may not have had the same experience, you know, if, but, a lot of people will relate to this, you know I grew up in a neighborhood of folks who were very proud of their lawn. [smiles and nods with hands upheld] You know? And, um, and I was raised to believe and to know that all people deserve dignity. And that we as Americans have a beautiful character. You know, we have ambitions and aspirations and dreams. But not everyone necessarily has access to the resources that can help them fuel those dreams and ambitions. So when I talk about building an opportunity economy, it is very much with the mind of investing in the ambitions and aspirations and the incredible work ethic of the American people, and creating opportunity for people, for example, to start a small business. Um, my mother, you know, worked long hours, and our neighbor helped raise us. We used to call her, it was, I still call her, our “second mother.” She was a small business owner. I love our small business owners, I learned who they are through my childhood, and she was a community leader, she hired locally, she mentored, our small businesses are so much a part of the fabric of our communities, not to mention, really, I think the backbone of America’s economy.
It’s 5:46 a.m. on a Saturday morning as I type this, so I don’t have time to mince words: What the hell was that, lady? This is an AI simulation of a response, just a mindless series of rote and agonizingly non-responsive, generic clichés strung together. Harris sits right there, eyes frozen in horror as her circuits begin to buzz and smoke, unable to answer the simplest of questions: Give me two of your policy proposals for lowering costs and increasing affordability. She betrays no human intellect whatsoever, in the creepiest possible way. It would almost be bleakly funny were she not quite possibly our next president: This level of complete failure isn’t like watching a Replicant fail a Voight-Kampff test, it’s like watching a UNIVAC computer fail a Turing test. At the first question.
After two and a half incredible minutes of this, she finally catches her breath, resets, and slowly recites the memorized “policy proposals” her advisers programmed her with, umming and erring as she mentally tries to recollect each bullet point in her briefing book:
So my opportunity economy plan includes: giving startups a $50,000 tax deduction, to start their small businesses, it used to be $5,000, nobody can start a small business with $5,000, but investing in people’s innovative ideas and giving them the ability to go for it. Um, “opportunity economy” means look, we don’t have enough housing in America. We have a housing supply shortage. And what that means, in particular for so many younger Americans, the American dream is elusive, it’s just actually not attainable. So part of my plan is to work with the private sector on housing developers, to give them a tax credit, to be able to partner with us as the government to build, and my goal is 3 million new homes by the end of my first term. In addition, to help people who just want to get their foot in the door literally, and so giving first-time homebuyers a $20,000 down-payment assistance, to be able to just get in the door, and then they will do the work that they need to do, to save and to pay that mortgage and to build wealth for themselves in their family. These are some examples of what I mean when I talk about an opportunity economy, and a lot of it has to do with just the community I was raised in and the people that I admired who work hard. You know? And deserve to have their dreams fulfilled because they’re prepared to work for it.
People, that was question number one.
I have now transcribed all ten minutes of this interview by hand to capture each um, er, “you know,” and soul-withering grin. (This is always best practice — media accounts often “clean up” a candidate’s grammar when they feel charitable.) I will not inflict more upon you because nobody deserves to have that much block-text forced upon them on a weekend.
But truly, there is something memorably pathetic about the way Kamala Harris is incapable of thinking on the fly or really doing anything except dribbling words down her chin with all the self-control and coordination of a newborn struggling with a spoonful of Gerber. She is incapable of anything beyond memorized cliché — and she can’t even memorize her clichés when put on the spot. Her understanding of policy is transparently less than an inch thick — she plays as a person who “got into politics” at a young age for the gamesmanship and drama and power of it all, a showhorse and not a workhorse — and it amazingly seems wholly comparable (if not inferior) to Donald Trump’s. I hope you enjoyed Kamala Harris’s first (though brief) one-on-one media interview. Because I would not expect a sequel in front of anyone tougher than Oprah anytime soon.