I always feel for the losers in Presidential elections. It has to be one of the most crushing career failures that any human being has to endure, certainly in politics.
In “Inherit the Wind,” Jerome Lawrence and Robert Lee’s famous play based on the Scopes Trial, the wife of “William Harrison Brady,” the character who is a thinly veiled version of William Jennings Bryan, has a moving speech about how no one can imagine the pain her husband has suffered losing three Presidential races, as Bryan did (a record). In modern times, losing just once usually ends a candidate’s political career, no matter how young they may be or how close the election.
I think that it is highly unlikely that Kamala Harris, the DEI Vice-President who had no business running even once, will break the recent pattern. She will sign a book deal, cash in, and fade into obscurity, a bad memory for Democrats, a living joke to everyone else. Unfortunately for her, Harris is still our Vice-President, and cannot start fading away yet.
Yesterday she was again the object of derision and mirth on social media and on the conservative websites for her very Harris-like performance during an unscripted Oval Office briefing on the Palisades fire crisis. It was this section, a trademarked Harris “word salad,” that attracted the ridicule:
“It’s critically important that, to the extent you can find anything that gives you an ability to be patient in this extremely dangerous and unprecedented crisis, that you do.”
I can’t say anything nice about the idiotic content of that statement, for telling people whose houses are burning to be “patient” is about as tone-deaf as a political figure can be. However, I finally have figured out why she keeps issuing those “word salads.” It isn’t because she is a dullard, although she is. The reason for her malady should have occurred to me earlier when I considered giving her a permanent Julie Principle pass on them.
People who have to speak for a living without a script in their hands, like actors, politicians, talk radio hosts, talking heads on TV, trial lawyers, teachers and leaders in all fields, learn very quickly that they have to keep talking if at all possible while developing the skill of improvisation. As such people (like, say, me) gain in experience and skills, they develop tricks and devices that work for them (or that they think works). All of us are told by our teachers not to default to “um” or “uh…” while speaking, because it makes us sound stupid as well as being annoying to listeners. (I sure hope teachers have added “like” to that set of no-nos.) So we try other tactics, and those that we think work best become lifetime habits.
Actor James Stewart, whose halting speech patterns were the pride and joy of comic impressionists for decades, explained in an interview that he didn’t really speak like that, but developed the speech pattern as an actor to stall while he was remembering his lines. William Shatner also admitted that he didn’t really speak like Captain Kirk, with strangely long pauses between words, but the film schedule on “Star Trek” was such that he needed the extra time to remember his lines. (John Wayne’s weird pauses mid-sentence, however, started after he had a cancerous lung removed: he would run out of breath.)
Improvisation on stage teaches you to find ways to stall without losing the audience. Have you ever had bad news to relay and dragged out the prelude to the really bad stuff as you simultaneously searched for how to reveal the worst part? Have you ever drawn out a joke you started to tell because you forgot the punchline? That’s what Harris is doing while she tosses those word salads. At some point, that method of stalling worked for her, so she settled on it and it became a lifetime habit.
Too bad: not only is it irritating, she’s not very good at it. Still, that is what she’s doing. Donald Trump’s speaking style is also annoying, but he settled on the stream of consciousness approach to the same problem. (He is a classic example of my friend Tom Donohue’s statement that “I sometimes don’t know what I think until I hear what I have to say.”) Other speakers have pat phrases they use and overuse to buy time. I was an early fan of moderate Republican John Kasich during the 2016 GOP debates and primaries, but his device, saying “Guess what?” to stall and compose his next sentence, drove me crazy.
As a speech, trial practice and drama coach, I can break most students of these habits; it doesn’t even take very long with most people. Someone should have fixed Harris’s speaking style long ago.
But it’s too late now.
Ethics Alarms 
This makes sense. I know I have repeated the same thoughts many times to numerous clients over the years that I almost feel dishonest stating something as an original thought that I have said over and over and over again.
However, when it comes to making arguments or something, if I realize I have gotten to the point that I am repeating myself, I will simply make that observation and stop talking.
-Jut
I think you’re exactly right. I speak for a living, as well, and never thought about what I do to handle brain freezes. I may have to think about that from now on.
But many of her ‘word salads’ have been when she was delivering a written statement from a teleprompter. Her staff reportedly hates her and I always wondered if they did it on purpose, telling her it makes her sound smart.
I am not sure it is a thought delay mechanism she uses to give her time to formulate a response. It seems more to me that she is simply saying things that sound really great at the moment but are wholly meaningless but have the added benefit of not biting back on her in the future.
jvb
At first I thought, “Why would they sink their own ship?” But it occurs to me that being part of a failed campaign that you saw through to the end would look better on a resume than a campaign you quit on. So it is a possiblity…
Still doesn’t speak well for her that she never read any of this stuff, and thought, “Wait a minute, this doesn’t make sense…” or caught on that anyone who isn’t a die-hard progressive thinks her speech is ridiculous.
I’d add another aspect to here saladry: faux empathy hiding an annoying “mother knows best” superiority. She speaks as if she’s the most emotionally intelligent person in the room. She’s figured it out and her insight is so deep it can barely be expressed in words. If you are reeled in by her verbosity, you come away feeling better but not really knowing exactly what it is she said. It’s faux profundity. Aka, Authentic Frontier Gibberish. Come to think of it, I don’t think she’s clearing her throat while she figures out what she wants to say. Nope. Sorry. She thinks she’s smart and anyone who doesn’t get it is just too stupid.
Agreed. The throat clearing is a signal: it means, “listen up! I am gonna say something deeply profound and insightful. Pay attention.”
jvb
“that method of stalling worked for her“
IMO, it was encouraged, (or just not opening derided), by the low expectations of the parasites who saw a meal ticket, then hitched on and brought her along, with the capable assistance of the blood sucking toadies surrounding her.
I’ll always remember an image of Michelle Obama pouting inconsolably after Hope-n-Change called Harris “best-looking attorney general in the country.”
PWS
Those bites of word salad reduce to “It’s critically important that…that you do.”
This leads me to believe that VP Harris has a vast but completely unmerited confidence in her ability to speak extemporaneously. That’s a dangerous trait (character flaw?) for people in any position where other people will be listening to you. It’s been said many times before, but imagine a “President Harris” trying to talk to any foreign head-of-state…the times she did so as VP were often shockingly bad and deservedly mocked.
I wonder if she ever goes back and listens to recordings of what she actually says. Does she cringe? If so, there’s hope for her. If she doesn’t, she has FAR bigger issues…or the weed has fully addled her brain.
I think fundamentally Harris cannot answer a question without the word salad because she’s not prepared with a convincing lie. If she could just tell the truth, “I’m sorry that CA leadership can’t figure out how to put out a fire with ocean water if the hydrants are dry from their on-going mismanagement.”, she wouldn’t have to think quickly. Sadly for her, thinking quickly is not in her wheelhouse. Perhaps thinking AT ALL isn’t in her wheelhouse, but no doubt that thinking quickly is beyond her capabilities.
Harris drops these word salads, not to give her a moment to think of something to say, but because she has never been pressed on the positions she takes and the things she says. It is the same with Newsom – he says things that sound profound, concrete in response to a question, and meaningful until to think about them and say, “Wait. What does that mean?” But, by then he has moved on and the conversation has moved on to something else.
jvb
I’ve noticed that Harris’ latest speeches seemed to lack the cackle, so she’s doing better on that front. But I’m amazed that, even if she’s being sabotaged, like Michael R. suggested above, she’s never figured out how dumb she sounds. I can understand her speech habits being at least partially a stalling habit, but not even close family gave her pointers on improving? She never listened to herself thinking, “OK I could’ve said this and that better”?
As has been pointed out before, playing the “King” (or “Queen” in this case), is an important part of the presidency, and one aspect of that is learing to speak well. If I was running for office (a sign of the Apocalypse), I would at least seriously consider hiring a vocal coach. I also wouldn’t hire a speechwriter. Instead I would have a speech editor; someone who could look over my own material and make sure it’s at least coherent.
Author Orson Scott Card wrote this piece a while back about the enthusiastic response to Mitt Romney’s wife’s speech at the 2012 Republican convention. He points out that Ann Romney essentially grew up learning to speak in public, because it’s part of life for us Mormons. We give talks at church, we teach Sunday School, and of course there’s talking to people as missionaries. Once on my mission I was asked to teach a Sunday School class with about 5 minutes notice. Not every politician will have that level of experience (and I still wouldn’t call myself an expert), but it seems to me that learning to give prepared remarks, or even speaking on the fly about stuff people are likely to ask about, is small potatoes compared to pouring over the language of a bill or negotiating with local opposition or foreign leaders.