As the bewildering mystery of who is the owner of a baggie of cocaine discovered near the White House Situation Room consumes more of the media’s apparently limited bandwidth, another even more troubling scandal has been swept under the rug. I’m talking about the apparently declining cognitive skills of the quinquagenarian Vice-President Kamala Harris.
While it’s become the source of much great eye-rolling among observers who’ve become accustomed to Harris’ bizarre displays of public word salad, it should be concerning to anyone who is looking to Vice-President Harris as a likely successor to the forty-sixth president, who will be 82 years old on the day of his swearing-in for a second term (should he manage to win in 2024 and still be capable of serving as president).
Vice-President Harris has three years’ worth of gaffes that have generated endless guffaws, not only from Biden critics but from his allies as well.
The Culture Wars 3.0
Recently, Harris found herself speaking to an audience at the 2023 Essence Festival of Culture.
The “Culture Wars” have been raging in the United States for almost a decade. Every few decades they erupt. My grandparents had to live through the swingin’ sixties and the so-called “hangover” decade of the 1970s.
The “Culture Wars” again erupted in the 1990s, coinciding with Bill Clinton’s reign of ease and licentiousness. The following tumult of the 2000s and George W. Bush’s religious revivalism was the result of the “end of history” that the 1990s purported to be (but was, in fact, merely America’s unfortunate strategic holiday).
Since 2015, the “Culture Wars” have again erupted.
Whereas the 1960s were about sexual liberation and equality for all races and the 1990s seemed to be defined by the permissibility of extramarital affairs, the current “Culture War” is defined by notions of challenges to the basic idea of sexuality itself coupled with new battles over race.
Given that this current iteration of the tiresome—and ultimately wasteful—“Culture Wars” has played out for many years, one would have thought that Vice-President Harris would have had some semblance of an idea as to what constitutes “culture.” At least, she should display some grasp of what the Democratic Party believes to define “culture.”
Sadly, you would be incorrect that she could accomplish such a basic task for a woman in her position. Harris proved herself totally incapable of even uttering a sensible word to a mostly friendly audience.
For example, Harris was asked by an audience member to define what “culture” meant to her. It’s a perfectly fair question, not just because of the current zeitgeist, but because the vice president was speaking to a group that was clearly concerned about culture. Her response to the query was utterly confounding.
It went like this:
“Culture is—it is a reflection of our moment in time. Right? And present culture is the way we express how we’re feeling about the moment and we should always find times to express how we feel about the moment. That is a reflection of joy. Because, you know, it comes in the morning […] We have to find ways to also express the way we feel about the moment in terms of just having language and a connection to how people are experiencing life. And I think about it in that way, too.”
We Are Made Dumber for Listening to Harris
When listening to her audience’s painful response and stunned silence, I was immediately reminded of the great Adam Sandler comedy, “Billy Madison.”
In that film, the spoiled and insulated eponymously named rich kid, played by Sandler, must effectively retake all his schooling in 24 weeks to prove to his dejected father that he is not an idiot and is, therefore, worthy of leading the family’s multimillion-dollar business.
At the end of the film, for his final test, he is in a gameshow-like setting where he is being quizzed by the principal of the school he is attending.
The question asked of Madison is for the man-child to give a proper definition of the industrial revolution and briefly explain its effects on society. Madison’s response is a meandering and confusing word salad—much like Harris’ definition of “culture”—that prompts the principal to respond by saying, “Mr. Madison, what you have just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
Most Americans today, regardless of party, are in the position of the principal in Billy Madison being made to endure Vice-President Kamala Harris’ “rambling, incoherent” responses. Our only problem is that this is not some comedy.
It is real life.
And Harris is defacto slated to assume the presidency at any moment, given her boss’ variable health (he is 80 years old for goodness sake!) In case you didn’t know, the world is teetering on the brink of a nuclear world war with Russia over Ukraine. This, apparently, blithering idiot is slated to potentially assume power during a crisis such as that.
Far from filling us with confidence, Kamala Harris worries most people each time she speaks in public. What nonsensical thing will she say now?
What Culture Really Is
Just for the record, an acceptable definition of culture should go something like this, “the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group.” That’s quite the opposite of Harris’ bizarre definition of “culture.”
According to Harris, culture is “a reflection of our moment in time” and it’s a way “we express how we feel about the moment.”
No, it is not ephemeral.
Culture is what we translate to our progeny that is timeless. It’s the oral traditions of Native American tribes that have survived genocide. It is the reason why Jews still celebrate Yom Kippur. Why Confucius is still known and followed by almost a billion Chinese a thousand years after his death. Culture is why Haitians practice voodoo, which is itself believed to be a derivation of religious practices among certain tribes in places like Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Nigeria.
Set aside Harris’ veritable word salad answer that would make our likely senile, aphasia-addled president blush. Her definition is just wrong about “culture.” And if that’s what she believes culture is—and if she’s speaking for the Democratic Party’s elite—it explains the utterly inexplicable, frankly irrational, stances that Harris and her party have taken in the ongoing “Culture War”.
Kamala Harris is a hot mess. Both in terms of ideology and competency, she might be scarier than Joe Biden. And that’s saying a lot.
The question remains: why is Kamala Harris like this? What’s going on with her that evokes such bizarre public behavior? Could it be that the cocaine found near the White House Situation Room is actually hers? That’d answer many of these questions.
A 19FortyFive Senior Editor, Brandon J. Weichert is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, as well as at American Greatness and the Asia Times. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower (Republic Book Publishers), Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life (Encounter Books), and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy (July 23). Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
