Jonathan Capehart and Kamala Harris are, in some ways, made for each other.

Both are B-list actors on the political stage. Vaguely recognizable, as in “you were in that thing!” recognizable. In a just world they would be forever relegated to bit roles in made-for-TV productions such as Hallmark movies.

Yet they have both been thrust upon us as as potential A-listers because somebody has to “break barriers,” and the most interesting and thoughtful non-White politicians and cultural figures these days aren’t Leftists. For that matter, the most interesting White politicians and cultural figures aren’t Leftists either.

Intellectually the Left is played out. When Joe Biden, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are your A-list politicians, AOC your major draw, and Don Lemon an A-list intellectual, your movement is running on inertia and little else.

That’s why I literally laughed out loud when I saw this headline and column from Capehart. “Kamala Harris Had a Most Excellent Year.”

Kamala Harris had a most excellent year https://t.co/kTEM7RPhRZ

— Jonathan Capehart (@CapehartJ) December 22, 2022

That, I think, was even news to Kamala Harris. There is literally nobody on Earth who thought that 2022 was a great year for Harris. At least not in any way that matters to the public.

Harris is, rightfully, an object of derision in America. She is the very definition of an affirmative action hire. The Biden team didn’t even try to hide it. There was no pretending that the team chose Harris because she was the most qualified. They barely made the argument that she was qualified at all.

And how could they? Harris was the favorite of the institutional Left because she would break glass ceilings. She was both of African and South Asian descent, and of course female, so they could claim a trifecta of intersectional oppression that had kept her down. The glowing praise she got in 2019 as a presidential candidate was vomit inducing, and vomit is precisely what Democrat voters did when they got a good look at her.

Harris is neither the most stupid nor most unappealing politician out there. But she makes the top 10 list. There could be more boring figures out there, but you and I have never heard of them because they are so boring. Her most exciting characteristics are her cackle and her penchant for Venn diagrams.

As a presidential candidate she flopped. Pete Buttigieg outlasted her by months. She was literally that bad. No matter how hard the MSM tried to turn her into a star, she just didn’t appeal. She is the She-Hulk of politicians, so repellent a figure that her sole value is as an object of scorn.

Yet in Harris Jonathan Capehart–whose main qualification for being a Washington Post Editorial Board member and MSNBC host is that he too allows them to demonstrate their commitment to diversity–sees a triumphant politician who gets too little credit for her accomplishments.

She is a diplomat and a persuasive fighter for women’s rights. A civil rights icon of whom statues one day will be built.

Vice President Harris walked into her ceremonial office at the White House with a broad smile and easy confidence when we sat down for an interview on the Monday before Christmas. And why shouldn’t she smile? President Biden’s electoral right-hand ma’am is finishing a banner year filled with domestic barnstorming and high-wire diplomacy.

Kamala Harris and “easy confidence” in the same sentence? This may be the first time that happened. Harris literally cackles all the time because she is so obviously out of her depth that even she knows it. Her version of explaining foreign policy is explaining to people that Russia is a big country next to Ukraine, a small one. That is literally the extent of her knowledge of world affairs. She never appears fluent in her topics, and is always nervous.

She was never more confident in her role as vice president — nor in herself — than during her barnstorming on privacy rights. I’ve known and covered Harris for a decade. Whenever she talks about these issues, passion wells up and her most authentic self comes through.

I said as much to her, and Harris pushed back. “I’m always myself, Jonathan,” Harris said with a laugh before raising a broader point.

“There are things that I’ve done as vice president that fully demonstrate the strength of my leadership as vice president that have not received the kind of coverage that I think Dobbs did receive,” Harris said. She specifically mentioned her Munich speech. “What you’ve been able to see,” she admonished, is “based on what gets covered.”

Do you actually believe, based upon your now voluminous experience being exposed to the inanities that come out of Kamala’s mouth that she literally said “There are things that I’ve done as vice president that fully demonstrate the strength of my leadership as vice president that have not received the kind of coverage that I think Dobbs did receive?”

Never in a million years. Not only does Kamala Harris never speak like that, but nobody does. That is resumé writing, not speech. “Fully demonstrate?” C’mon, man!

I’m not saying that Kamala Harris walks on water. Her Chuck Taylors got plenty wet from the growing pains that come with adjusting to being a heartbeat away from the presidency. But the nation’s first Black female and first South Asian vice president has also had to contend with the negative reactions and low expectations that come with shattering ossified notions of who should be in the position.

Harris has ably fulfilled the role Biden chose her to perform. She was an instrumental partner in helping to shepherd the first Black woman onto the Supreme Court. Also, Harris cast one of her record 26 tiebreaking votes to confirm the first Black woman to the Federal Reserve.

With Democrats and their independent caucus-mates holding 51 Senate seats in the next Congress, Harris will no longer be needed for tiebreaking duty. Before I could even finish my question on this topic, Harris blurted out, “Praise be to God!”

Not being tethered to Washington by the pandemic or the threat of razor-thin votes means Harris can travel in the coming months. She can hear directly from the American people, and they can hear directly from her. They can take the measure of her. And they can see what I saw on Monday: a vice president better than her portrayal in the media.

Harris’ sole purpose in life is to be a symbol, not a person or a policy maker. It is almost as if her career path was decided by somebody in central casting and her job is to “stand over there and say this.”

She can’t even do that well.

What is striking to me about Harris and Capehart is how they are indeed the products of a pervasive racism, but a racism that exists within the hearts and minds of Leftists.

There are plenty of talented and thoughtful minorities in America, both black and South Asian. But their flaw is that they are independent thinkers who won’t mouth the platitudes and simply look the part. So they get pushed aside, and in more than a few cases find themselves moving right. There is no space for them on the Left side of the aisle unless they agree to become actors in a movie written by others.

This sort of “casting” is hardly unique to the Left. All organizations and hierarchies do. It’s just that the Left is so dominant that there are more examples and fewer places where talent can organically rise. When your breakout stars are Pete Buttigieg and AOC it’s clear that talent has few avenues for advancement.

The most dynamic intellectual environment appears to be the talent that has given up on the institutions and who are creating spaces in which the non-affiliated can thrive. Substack has spawned a lot of interesting content from figures like Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Glenn Loury, Vinay Prasad and others. Most of them are center-left figures (or, in Greenwald, a hard left figure) who refuse to be straightjacketed.

They give me hope when I run across columns like Capehart’s. Not everybody is a shill. Talent is still out there, breaking out of the constraints.

As we move into the new year I hope to find more such people, so that I can more easily and heartily laugh at the Kamala Harrises and Jonathan Capeharts. It is too depressing to bear the idea that our civilization will die with a whimper led by such people.