'I have a soft spot for people whose inner selves burst out in compromising, vaguely neurotic ways.' (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
One thing you often hear said about Vice President Kamala Harris is that she has a terrible laugh. Indeed, if you believe its critics, you’d think her laugh is a big reason why she was such a poor candidate for her party’s presidential nomination four years ago, and partly why so many people think she’d make a poor replacement for her failing boss. Harris is “unlikeable”, and one big reason is her cacophonous laugh. Donald Trump, likes to call her “laughing Kamala”. Of course he does.
On the one hand, I generally hate the sort of political chatter that focuses on things like a candidate’s laugh. It’s one of the ways in which we in America accept forms of shallowness and meaninglessness in our politics that are so forthright as to be nihilistic. I mean, according to both game theory and the philosophy of language, people are supposed to hide their strategic intent when they use false speech to manipulate others.
But in American politics we’ve made strategic falseness an open part of our electoral dynamics. “You know, he did a good job of ‘pivoting’ from the primaries where he said the one thing to the general election when he’s saying the totally opposite thing. That was a good pivot. He’s doing well.” When hypocrisy is this overt, vice is no longer — as the saying goes — paying tribute to virtue. Instead it’s waving dismissively at virtue and telling it: “Get lost, old man.” And nobody could possibly believe that someone’s fitness to govern hinges in any way on what their laugh sounds like. But, because the laugh might have some negative subconscious effects on some voters, we grant it real political meaning and carry on vetting candidates for the most powerful political office in the world until we’ve found someone with a better laugh. The shallowness of this is so stark that it borders on self-contradiction.
On the other hand, it’s a pretty bad laugh. It comes at you hard and weird. The cringe you feel when you hear it makes you think: “Something is not working here. Something is off.” The discomfort the laugh induces in the listener, I think, reflects a corresponding discomfort in the laugher, a nagging and unfixable mismatch between her inner nature and the public role she’s playing. The discordant notes in the laugh, in other words, are neurotic, they’re symptomatic, and, I have to admit, I have a soft spot for people whose inner selves burst out in compromising, vaguely neurotic ways, in public.
For example, along with my profound admiration for his footballing skills, I have strangely tender personal feelings toward Uruguay striker and former Liverpool ace Luis Suarez, precisely because he bites people. I’ve always viewed Suarez’s biting incidents as Freudian slips, accidental confessions of insecurity about his conspicuous teeth, his horsey overbite. Suarez is an exuberant guy, and, I think, this exuberance fuels an anxious fixation on his teeth that is totally understandable, and then, in rare moments of emotional wildness on the football pitch, and in the classic manner of the Freudian slip, he does the nightmare thing he’s consumed with not doing: he makes the whole world think about his teeth. When those incidents have happened, I’ve given brief consideration to the startled guy with fresh bite-marks on his shoulder, but my enduring sympathies lie with the biter, Luis Suarez, whose morbid unease with his own teeth has just performed itself again, in public.
Likewise, when one of those discomfiting laughs escapes from Kamala Harris, to circulate for the world’s mockery as viral content on the internet, my deepest reflex is not to mock her as well but to sympathise with her. Like Luis Suarez laying out his dental anxieties through acts of biting, Harris seems to be speaking in subtext when her laugh bursts the bounds of normality: “I know this is unnatural!” she’s saying. “I’m trying to be ‘likeable’ but I can’t keep it from being weird!”
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SubscribeHarris can’t be counted out; the anti Trump voter block is massive. Biden got a record number of votes in 2020 despite looking more dead than Calvin “How can they tell?” Coolidge.
After the debate which was so disastrous that the Democrats elite had to drag Biden kicking and screaming from the race, 33 or so percent of Americans thought Biden had won.
TDS is very widespread.
The “TDS” is at least partly justified!
The Far Left is hiding in plain sight, camouflaged by the hatred of DJT that it has fomented. Democrat anti-Trumpers show how vapid they are, voting for policies that are destroying the country, all because “Orange Man Bad.”
What? Your far left is far away. ,ere talking here about masses of not particularly politicised people who might have been lost to political processes. That they’re cing out for Kamala is great for democracy whether she wins or not’.Strzets betturhanbTrumo saying vote for me and you’ll never have to vote again..
I have no idea what that sentence of yours meant. And I don’t think you do either.
Blimey! What a shambles. No one is getting out of that comment alive.
Couldn’t agree more. Kamala’s base will be energized. Women, feminists, white men feminists, non white people. For decades they have been told that white men are evil and women, especially women of color, are virtuous and victims. They will come out in huge numbers to vote this fall.
Exactly. The Democrats aka leftists have been demonizing men, but especially white men as ‘toxic’ for several decades now. But surprisingly, Kamala is now seeking a ‘white dude’ as her campaign is phrasing it to get her over the line. They are even giving out hats that say, ‘white dudes for Harris’. Good on that. She’s pathetic. The whole DNC is pathetic.
As will a lot of white centrist anti-Trump voters. I think a problem with so many people on this forum is that they simply never engage with anybody who disagrees with them on anything. The idea that just a bunch of ethnic minorities Democrats is ridiculous.
Trump isn’t unfortunately the answer to America’s deep problems
Re: Biden sitting in his basement and still winning the Presidency doesn’t say much for the American electorate, does it?! And it could easily happen again with Harris, especially when the Democrats have no problem spending taxpayers money to buy votes – forgiving billions of dollars of student loans; the so-called ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ which ironically did nothing to stem inflation but did manage to gush out flows of money to favorite interest groups like climate freaks and Catholic and Lutheran charities which abetted illegal immigrants to come into the country. Money speaks loudly and Democrats know how to dish it out to retain power.
Let me guess – this writer will vote Democrat. One of the more boring pieces I have read on this issue.
Although she is right about the missed opportunity. He’s been kind of disciplined….but that speech was an opportunity to completely and utterly flip the script without changing course on policy at all (because he’s basically a centrist)
Kamala Harris has accomplished little to nothing except her seemingly fantastic ability to climb the greasy political pole. Pray to God, she fails in her quest to put another notch on her belt.
What a rambling nonsense.
The problem with the internet is that without the discipline of column inches you get guff like this.
In the UK we had “anything but the conservatives” and of course we ended up in a worse place. If the US votes “anything but Trump” it will find itself in a country called San Francisco.
Indeed, I suspect many of my Reform-voting fellow commenters at the Spectator are waking up with big hangovers. I and one or two others did warn them.
Just wait till the Council Tax bill pops through the door in 2026
I’m not on the same page politically as this author, but I think he’s essentially right. Trump has now lost one of his biggest assets for the election – that was Biden. He has blown another – his complete failure to be more disciplined and statesman like after the assassination attempt. Was saying “crooked Joe Biden” really a great political move, whatever you may think on the substance? Since Biden had just stood down it sounded churlish and nasty.
The whining on about the 2020 election is by now just boring. But the hope that some conservatives invest in Trump and the contortions they get into has always rather desperate and even amusing. The guy actually isn’t even that interested in fighting the culture wars, a conservative future or much anything else, other than his own grievances and sounding tough.
And lastly the Republicans under Trump have yet to win the popular vote in any contest; pretty extraordinary for such a fantastic leader!
The description of Trump’s inertia is brilliant
Sometimes the most unlikely choices make strong leaders. Trueman, Blair, Johnson, even Thatcher. Not talking about their politics, but simply their unlikely elevation to the top job reveals hidden strengths. This could be so with Harris.
What she will do is provide a startling alternative to Trump that may be surprisingly appealing to many voters.
What are her solid policies?
Like Starmer, get elected first, then decide on policies
Problem with your logic is that Starmer was a challenger to Tory government.
Whereas Harris is continuity candidate, who spent years pretending that Biden is mentally capable of being American president.
If American voters had half a brain, that would disqualify her from any office never mind presidential one.
I agree with you that she has a chance because of all MSM hate against Trump.
Trump’s time in office is the best reason not to go there again.. And there are others before and since..But some want to say Harris is the issue?? She doesn’t have to be a saviour to be a better choice.. And she’s mobilising the hidden majority of Americans who want something quite different. They are entitled toakevtheir mark now , even if it frightens a few fuddy duddies.
Hidden strength? Putting an innocent man (withheld evidence) and marijuana smokers in jail. Was a “successful” border czar and lying, till she was nominated, about old Joe’s mental capability. Yes, and it is true that she got her jobs in San Fran because of a certain Willy
test
A reminder amid the revisionism – people like the author summarily rejected Kamala four years ago. Her polling numbers were worse than Biden’s. She WAS (is) the border czar. She did work to raise bail money for protesters during the BLM riots.
Don’t worry everyone! She is not that soft on crime. After all, Harris was one of the most infamously abusive prosecutors in recent memory before she even got in to national politics. I mean don’t take it from me. Here is the moment that Gabbard took a flamethrower to Kamala’s prosecutor record and burnt down her presidential hopes (at least the first time around).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1-CRrMDSLs
This is drivel and wishcasting.
Harris is a terrible candidate not only because she is not a very likeable person. She’s also far to the left of most of America and has little policy experience whatsoever.
Kamala known to be a dull reader of scripted speeches, more engaging off the cuff, laugh and all. When Biden finally announced his retirement, she went into the fray with a bare bones script which didn’t need to be read, and Bang! It wasn’t a beautiful speech but it was gutsy and moved masses of people. Both the breadth and depth of her appeal were greatly extended. That’s not easy for anyone to achieve.
Was this happenstance, due to being short of time to prep, or a deliberate decision to go gritty rather than pretty? Whatever, Harris has turned a page in the election and her image will never be as it was before. After she then calmly bit Bibi on the nose, Trump looks the lightweight now. There may not be any real need to stand up to Xi or Putin, but those who were whining Kamala couldn’t do such look foolish now.
Kamala may not have the last laugh. But she’s cackled America’s silent progressive masses to life.
I’m not fond of Kamala Harris–she couldn’t manage the only meaningful brief given to her as a Veep. However, your brilliant piece should give the republicans, or, specifically, the MAGA multitudes a real concern.
Kamala hadn’t had to go through the attrition of pernicious primaries that leave most contestants battered and bruised. Further, she already has about 240 dollar war chest, if you’re to believe the MSM, an ‘inheritance’ from Biden; and she has been through this road before.
Trump was his own worst enemy–not having the imagination and discipline to exploit what was thrust upon him. His ‘conciliatory campaign’ lasted less than 12 hours.
Certainly, choosing Vance was neither here nor there. You would’ve thought that he was going to reach out to the wider electorates outside his multitudes.
I’m unsure where the GOP goes from here, given that Trump and his handlers had only plan A: the election was going to be an old doddering duffer v an energetic septuagenarian nuts.
The next-to-last paragraph, about Trump’s low-energy and lame convention speech, rings of truth. Trump is becoming so tiresome, repetitive, and strangely incoherent, that voters may go for Harris out of simply recoiling. The Repubs, hijacked by the “personality cult” elements of their party, may have to pay a price.
She may very well have the last laugh. There is an insignificant number of undecided voters. The ones who don’t know which candidate to pick. There are , however, voters who haven’t decided whether to vote or stay at home. And that is what we truly should be calling the undecided voters. Getting your base out to vote is the key to victory.
Women, non white people will come out in droves to vote. The Democratic base is energized. This is what matters. Not policies, candidate qualifications, competence, accomplishments, etc.
In the US identity politics rule the day. A non white woman is poised to do very well this cycle.
“Trump’s urge to complain about the same old things”
But maybe that is a cunning plan to get women’s votes.
Philosophers agree that women have a Culture of Complaint while men have a Culture of Insult. If Trump was issuing insults for 90 minutes then all the cognoscenti would agree that he was Literally Hitler.
Oh wait. They already do.
I’ve always thought that the laugh usually comes after she’s said something she didn’t feel confident about saying or something she belatedly realized was weird – a nervous laugh.
I can see Kamala absolutely filling up car parks with the numbers at her rallies.
Kamala Harris’ rally in very Democratic Philadelphia today drew a crowd of 300 people.
Trump’s rally in very Democratic Minnesota drew 8,000 people, with more standing outside.
Is Kamala energising her base?
If Harris wins, I suspect the joke will be on the long-suffering American people. God save us all.
I always say, ya deserve what ya vote for. And have no sympathy for folks who live in Democrat controlled inner cities like Baltimore, Chicago, New York , Detroit, etc. They earned their depravity,
Can you feel sympathy for those who deliberately choose to do evil? Clearly not, yet consider that Abraham prayed for Sodom (as a city), asking that it be spared for the sake of 10 righteous that may be found within it.
I’m really enjoying the utter panic that the Trump cultists are feeling as they realize that their moron god is about to lose in another landslide!
From now until the election the Rumpelstiltskin media will spin the straw of Kamala Harris into gold. After being elected–and she will be–she’ll dance to whatever tune the king-makers play and leave office as rich as Obama and Clinton.
This is not complicated. People think it is weird to laugh at what is not funny, or worse, to laugh for no evident reason at all. The Harris laugh is de trop, as the French say.
Though her laugh could be like a dog’s yawn, a sign of nervousness.
I read the article in vain all the way through to the end ( to my eternal credit ) to find out what the Harris superpower was. Something to do with a biting footballer, might it be? Impossible to say. Harder still to care.
Kamala Harris was eviscereated by Tulsi Gabbard over her record as a state precutor:
She refused leave to appeal by a prisoner on death row until forced to do so by a higher courtShe vigoruusly prosecuted drug offenders, then laughed and refused to answer when asked if she had taken recreational drugs.She kept prisoners incarcerated beyond the end of their sentences to use them as free labour for the state,
One does wonder if this will come back to bite her. It has the appearnace more of lazy vindictiveness than conscientious procution of crimes.
Harris is nothing more than the next in line puppet for the Soviet style unelected committee that’s actually running the country. Running it into the abyss.
Obama apparently wanted Kelly, Biden endorsed Harris to spite him. We are living the film Death of Stalin with the Democrats playing their roles.
If they win we’ll have four more years of this utter fiasco of inept failure.
I really do not appreciate being offered the pap in this article, it’s myopic and insulting to our intelligence.
So many words, such little said
Oh,is she Autistic then?