For a long time, I thought Veep was just very funny. Now, I think it’s prophecy. I was really sad when the series ended. But real life now may be even better.
As good as the comic dialogues and sometimes monologues in Veep were, Harris’ speeches and comments over the years are hard to beat.
Here are some gems and pearls of wisdom for the ages.
For example, Harris on the nature of time: “The governor and I, we were all doing a tour of the library here and talking about the significance of the passage of time, right, the significance of the passage of time. So, when you think about it, there is great significance to the passage of time in terms of what we need to do. What we need to do to create these jobs. And there is such great significance to the passage of time when we think about a day in the life of our children.”
Got that? Neither do I.
Speaking about the need to address climate change, she said: “We will work together, and continue to work together, to address these issues … and to work together as we continue to work, operating from the new norms, rules, and agreements, that we will convene to work together … we will work on this together.”
And on gun control after a mass shooting: “We got to take this stuff seriously, as seriously as you are because you have been forced to have taken this seriously.”
On how to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, she said: “It is time for us to do what we have been doing. And that time is every day.”
She also spoke on the war in Ukraine with passion and articulation, such as the time when she offered a geography lesson.
“So Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So, basically, that’s wrong.”
She wasn’t speaking at a kindergarten either, but addressing an adult audience in a radio interview. To be fair, though, you can’t really blame her as repeated surveys have shown there is much room for improvement when it comes to the knowledge of world geography among Americans.
Commenting on inequality, or at least I thought she was, Harris quoted what her own mother supposedly said: “I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree, you exist in the context.”
I think she meant that everyone had a backstory, but I am not sure.
On the same topic but on a different occasion: “Equality suggests often everybody should get the same thing, well that often assumes everybody started out in the same place as opposed to equity which is everyone should end up in the same place.”
OK, that’s kind of understandable, sort of.
Now here’s a good trick every politician should master, which is commenting by not commenting on anything. Harris said: “We all watched the television in coverage of just yesterday that’s on top of everything else that we know and don’t know yet based on what we’ve just been able to see and because we’ve seen it or not doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.”
Don’t ask!
By comparison, the fictional VP looks positively presidential. As unserious as Selina Meyer was, she at least never giggled habitually and uncontrollably in front of the TV camera.
Come to think of it, Louis-Dreyfus, the comedic actress in Veep, may have a better chance running against Trump, himself a former TV personality in real life. Or is it television? Fact and fiction are increasingly indistinguishable in America. After all, Louis-Dreyfus was the master of ceremony on the last night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention which endorsed Biden as its presidential nominee. No, really, I mean, in real life.
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