Someone appears to be working a little too hard to make Vice President Kamala Harris seem like “just folks.”
And it’s not working.
In this week’s example, after attending the unsurprising blowout of her alma mater, 16th-seeded Howard University, to first-seeded Kansas, Harris gave what the NCAA March Madness official Twitter feed euphemistically referred to as a “postgame message.”
Anyone who has paid any attention to Harris’ extemporaneous public comments would have expected her performance in this situation to rival that of the Howard Bison, who lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament, 96-68, to the Kansas Jayhawks.
And they wouldn’t have been disappointed with her words Thursday night.
“You guys did so good,” she said, clapping. “You guys did so good. You played hard; you played to the very last second. You made all us Bison so, so proud.”
One gets the impression that just before entering the locker room, Harris googled “after game pep talk,” got hits that involved elementary school Little League losses, and took notes.
“You hustled out there. You are smart. You are disciplined. You put everything you had into the game,” she said.
You’ll notice that there’s nothing in any of that to indicate that Harris knows the first thing about college basketball.
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“And, you know, that’s what it’s about, right?” she said, continuing her stream-of-consciousness platitudes. “Until the last minute, you guys did that.”
“You did not stop until the last second,” she said. “You did not stop.”
Because saying stuff twice in a row makes you seem smarter, I guess? Honestly, don’t ask me to tell you what she was thinking. Or if she was thinking.
“And this is so inspiring. So you keep playing with chin up and shoulders back, because you showed the world who Bison are.”
Someone may need to tell her that their season is over now.
At any rate, you can watch all her comments here, but I can’t in good conscience recommend doing so.
“You made all us Bison so proud.” ❤️@VP Kamala Harris delivered a postgame message to @HUMensBB 👏 #MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/zwQFcwlWYX
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 16, 2023
It didn’t take long for Twitter to point out how cringy the whole thing was.
After losing in the NCAA tournament, the team had to get a locker room speech from……Kamala Harris
You can literally feel the cringe in the room. I’m speechless https://t.co/XiuAHIYQ9H
— Clayton Keirns (@CKeirns) March 17, 2023
Seeing Kamala Harris speak in the Howard locker room after getting blown out was the cringiest thing I’ve ever seen
— Fire Frazier and Dorsey (@AM_Star5) March 16, 2023
Can’t think of anything worse than losing a March Madness game and then having to listen to Kamala Harris in the locker room.
— Jokic Apologist (@jazzphysicist) March 16, 2023
Losing in the NCAA tournament and then having to listen to Kamala give a speech in your locker room about how you just lost has to be considered cruel and unusual punishment. https://t.co/XF023gpWbN
— Jeff Cardwell (@JefferyCardwell) March 17, 2023
@MarchMadnessMBB @cbs please don’t ever show that cringy Kamala Harris locker room speech again. That was very disturbing 😬🤦🏻♂️
— StreightShewter (@StreightShewter) March 16, 2023
Kamala’s locker room speech is somehow even cringier than normal 😬😂
— JD (@JDinOKC42) March 16, 2023
To those tweeters who described her speech — and the apparent mood in the locker room — as cringy, I cannot disagree.
However, several people tweeted that they couldn’t imagine anything worse that having to sit there and listen to the vice president after a brutal loss, and with that I must take issue. It could certainly have been worse.
President Joe Biden himself could have joined her.
