October 30, 2020

What's with the laughing?

 

I saw this clip a while back and didn't get around to blogging it, but I'm noticing it again this morning because it's one of several things embedded at "Forget the polls, these Rust Belters offer real election insight" (a column by Miranda Devine at the NY Post).

67 comments:

Martin said...

Her laughing is a "Tell" she does it when she is uncomfortable with the question and is going to lie to you.

rcocean said...

Well, I'm not laughing. "Good Ol' Joe" won't last 2 years as President. That means "the most liberal senator" will be President.

And she did NOT "grow up as a black child in America". She went to Junior High school and High School in Montreal Canada with her Indian mother. Even when she was little child, she was living in Berkeley CA, with her Indian Mother and her sometimes present Jamaican partly-white Stanford-Professor father. It'd be hard to think of a less black place then Berkeley in the late 60's and early 70's. She literally has zero connection to America, unless you think the Bay area is "America".

tim maguire said...

More so in the first clip, but also somewhat in the second, her voice has a quiver in it that sounds to me like nervousness and suppressed panic to the point of tears. We're supposed to think it's suppressed laughter, but it doesn't sound at all like that to me. She sounds exactly like my daughter when she's put on the spot and her performance anxiety kicks in.

Also, her answer was nonsense. I get the "no" part, that's fine. Nice and clear. But the explanation of why the answer was no did not connect to the quesiotn or the answer in any way.

FWBuff said...

Unserious.

Ice Nine said...

Who would have ever guessed that Hillary Clinton could be outcackled?

gilbar said...

she Doesn't laugh, at Every question... Just the ones she can't answer
it's a Tell

cubanbob said...

A non-denial denial. How many millimeters separation from the bleeding edge of Liberalism to Socialism? In other words, how close to Bernie Sanders does she stand on the continuum?

gilbar said...

which will work GREAT, when she's President; and dealing with foreign powers

[foreign leader] Kamela, we are going to invade country B, unless you can stop us
[President Kamela] HAHHAHAHAHHAHAH!! INVADE? HAHAHAHHAHAH
tanks roll

Kay said...

Fitting metaphor for her entire “candidacy.”

Rick67 said...

Many have pointed out this odd habit Senator Harris has. And also how off-putting it is. It struck me when she posted on Twitter how it was her birthday. Okay no big deal that's fine. But she included a short video clip of her laughing like crazy while streamers and confetti fell around her. It looked *weird* and I don't know why she doesn't recognize this.

Gilbar's comment captures nicely why her regular open-mouthed laughing comes off as bizarre.

Hunter said...

Ridicule as a stand-in for argument. You first make it clear the premise of the question is absurd and you shouldn't even have to answer it. Then you deny/deflect/pivot. People who agree seem to eat this up. If you already think anyone who would ask such a question is stupid, then I guess you'll like Harris showing appropriate disdain for the question.

Joe's version of this is "Come on, man!" I suppose if Harris had burst out laughing more in the debate (and if that fly hadn't stolen all the attention) then her laughing at questions might be a bigger meme.

J. D. Canals said...

The Cuban community calls her QUE MALA.
As in: Qué mala suerte, ¿no? Pretty bad luck, huh?

h said...

Remember when journalists used to talk about whether or not a candidate had "gravitas"? I don't hear them asking that about Kamala Harris.

Fernandinande said...

Tee hee!

Camela continues to obsess and lie about her own extra-special race.

Tee hee!

"But participants were more likely to laugh at the violence of the situation the higher the volts went."

She's creepy.

hawkeyedjb said...

The giggle from Kamala means the same thing it always means from Hillary: here comes a lie.

Bilwick said...

Many of us in the pro-freedom camp referred to Hillary Clinton as "Queen Cacklepants;" but apparently there's now a "Queen Cacklepants II." Also, the IMAO blog has a panel with the Joker on the left and Kamala Harris on the right, and asking "What's the difference?"--and answering: "One's a cackling maniac. The other's The Joker." She even looks like The Joker in that photo.

tcrosse said...

Chinese have a way of laughing when nothing's funny.

wendybar said...

She does that to avoid answering any real questions.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

Remember when she was talking about smoking marijuana while listening to Tupac songs that wouldn't be produced until two years later? Her cackle was fingernails-on-blackboard cringe worthy. Now that we've identified her tell, we know she was blowing smoke out of her ass. Like she does every time she opens her pie hole.

Sebastian said...

"What's with the laughing?"

As others have said, it's a tell--anxiety about being exposed, the lie lies open. Didn't you say Joe was a racist? But that was in a debate, ha, ha. So, are you a socialist? No, no way, ha, ha.

It's also a meta-tell: she is not skilled enough to control her expressions, not smooth enough to hide the lie, too empty-headed and inauthentic to fill the gaps.

Wince said...

"Kamala Harris has this revealing verbal tic, where she simply repeats herself over and over when she cannot construct a logical argument."

Now she resorts to laughing maniacally as well.

Friendo said...

She. Is. Repulsive.

Static Ping said...

It's a well documented "tell" on her part. Whenever she is put in a situation where she doesn't want to answer the question, doesn't know how to answer the question, or is going to lie, she laughs. It's so blatant that it is, frankly, ridiculous.

Howard said...

Personally, I find the Kamela cackle very genuine and sincere

mikee said...

Kamala Harris is unused to being in a position of having to explain herself. She does it very poorly, and with obvious disdain for the process. Authoritarian despots, and she is most definitely someone who believes all power resides in herself, laugh when they are thinking, "When I finally get into office, I won't have to put up with such disrespectful treatment by these peasants." She is hating us publicly by laughing. We are deplorable, still.

PM said...

She's a complete, utter ninny.
And she'll be in Nancy's Valentino clutch.

Nonapod said...

At least Kamala squints her eyes a bit when emitting phoney laughter. Hillary would laugh with here eyes wide open, which was some serial killer behavior right there.

320Busdriver said...

Don’t laugh...That will be who resides in the WH if Biden wins. He won’t be long for this job with all that is going on. Crazy thing is,
I believe that is their plan to do what they REALLY want.
Now THAT is scary.

Doug said...

The giggle signals: "I'm not prepared to answer this question, and you gotta give me a break, girl!"

James Graham said...

Coming soon to the USA: Crazy Lady In White House.

(Biden will resign or be 25th in less than one year after inaugural.)

CWJ said...

Regarding "The Tell." If memory serves, Althouse has noted this before, particularly the "It was a debate" post. I think titling this present post as a "why" question is just Althouse being coy. To my mind, it's one of Althouse's least attractive qualities,

Temujin said...

It's so bizarre that she laughs every time she is asked a serious question. She is the least equipped person to ever come this close to being President.

DanTheMan said...

>>The giggle from Kamala means the same thing it always means from Hillary: here comes a lie.

It's an attempt to delegitimize the question. The laugh means "You're joking, right? You can't be serious!" In other words, you are a fool for even asking me that.

Hillary did this, too, with equal insincerity.
Once you know it's an evasion technique and not spontaneous, it looks even worse.

Bilwick said...

I notice that (at least around here) Harris is all but missing from the Biden-Harris campaign ads on television. Her name is included but in terms of visibility, she has pretty much been replaced by Jill Harris. I wonder if the Biden-Harris camp determined that harris is a liability and to keep her from the tv ads along with Dementia Joe's semi-intelligible word salads.

henge2243 said...

Willie Brown, "the only time she 'aint laughing is when she's got a dick in her mouth."

Mars S said...

What is with that tremolo in her voice? That isn't accidental.

Yancey Ward said...

I will give Harris one good piece of advice. Never ever play live poker.

Phil 314 said...

Kamala Harris is 56 and as far as I know in good health. Joe is 77. He is therefore at high risk for hospitalization and yes, death if he gets COVID. Therefore I assume he'll be generally hunkered down in the White House.

So I assume the face of this administration will be Comma-La.

Therefore anticipate a lot of that nervous laughter.

gilbar said...

"grow up as a black child in America"

Didn't Steve Martin make a movie about this?

LA_Bob said...

It's telling that Harris, so widely hyped in 2019, ran out of money (she said) and didn't bother to face the voters, dropping out of the race before 2020 even began. "Giggles" is just not a compelling candidate for anything (except in California).

Joe Biden, if he wins, will have saved Harris from political oblivion, just as Barack Obama saved Biden from oblivion in 2008. Says a lot about what was wrong with Obama and what is now wrong with Biden (not that it's hard to find things wrong with Biden). Neither of these guys can choose credible successors.

Drago said...

Harris' contrived, fake, over the top laughter is basically the soundtrack of every LLR-lefty FakeCon life.........

Drago said...

Howard: "Personally, I find the Kamela cackle very genuine and sincere"

Nicely done.

Lurker21 said...


It's nervousness. It's also a way of deflecting questions she can't answer. And it's a signal to reporters and supporters: "I think that question is silly, stupid, ridiculous, offensive. If you do too, you are right. If you don't, why not?" Or more generally, "We're here. We're having fun. Don't make waves." Hillary Clinton's cackle was similar, but she made less effort to appear fun-loving and came across as more authoritarian.

Jupiter said...

"Kamala Harris is unused to being in a position of having to explain herself."

I think it would be more accurate to say, that when Ms. Harris first began hanging around Willy Brown, she had a very important role to play, but it did not require any substantial knowledge of policy. Nonetheless, the serious politicians around Brown would, from time to time, ask her a serious question, assuming that she would have a unique insight into Brown's thinking. That laugh was her way of explaining the situation to them.

traditionalguy said...

That laugh is what interviewers call Dupper's Delight. A liar is delighted that they just fooled you so easily. Usually it is a brief glimpse of a smirk and twinkle in the eye. But Kamala masks her liar reaction with a friendly laugh about it. Doing that is an arrogance.

Colin said...

I have to suspect that Harris is one of those types who says exactly what she needs to say, and it has apparently taken her far in the strange world of California politics. But I also think on some level she realizes that her arguments are made of fluff and tissue paper...and probably sometimes genuine TP. So the laughs are compensation, a way to cover up a reaction that would look even worse then the laughter. That in some ways she sees herself as a fraud on stage, but still plows on ahead with reckless ambition.

RMc said...

You'd laugh too if you were this close to tricking America into making you their president.

Charlie said...

She's an awful politician.

Also, there's a good chance she will be President soon.

Kate said...

It's probably a liar's tell, but here's another answer: Sometime in her teen years she was told she had a pretty smile (she does, no matter the cackle) and learned to deploy it. A happy, attractive girl can get what she wants most of the time. She's too old now for this manipulation, but she can't stop.

Andrew said...

"I was born a poor black child."
- Steve Martin

Sebastian said...

Alternative theory:

The Harris cackle is a tell that she thinks absent daddy may be listening.

Daddy Harris, though no dad-dad, appears to be a no-BS Jamaican.

Methinks daddy would not approve of Kamala's cackled answers.

And isn't it kind of a tell-tell in its own right that the MSM are so incurious about her parents? Or about Kamala, half-Indian, one-quarter white, being raised "as a black child"?


David Clayton said...

Time filler while I spin furiously though the mental rolodex for the buzzwords I want to drop.

Kevin said...

Even when she's not laughing, she's shaking her head like a bobblehead doll.

Earnest Prole said...

It'd be hard to think of a less black place then Berkeley in the late 60's and early 70's.

The city of Berkeley was nearly 25 percent black in 1970. You don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.

5M - Eckstine said...

I guess its a nervous tell. Had a manager once that laughed all the time and the wrong moments. I always though it was because the manager felt he didn't deserve to be a manager.

5M - Eckstine said...

The poll I want to see:

If you were given two ballots and were guaranteed immunity from voting twice would you?

Bunkypotatohead said...

It's funny, cuz it's true.

iowan2 said...

People I've run into that giggle and laugh during conversations, have always ended up to be insecure and unable to make decisions. Not leaders, and not very good followers.

Unknown said...

What was Obama's tell?

"That's not who we are"?

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

her giggle--= audible flop sweat


You know who's NOT laughing?

... Scott Adams, ...and HE IS PISSED

mockturtle said...

It must be a Dem woman thing to cackle like a hyena. I don't recall any GOP women sounding like that.

The Godfather said...

President Nixon, what do you know about the break-in at the Democrats' headquarters in the Watergate?

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

President Clinton, did you have sexual relations with Miss Lewinsky?

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

President Obama, were you lying when you said that under the Affordable Care Act if we like our plan we can keep our plan?

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

daskol said...

It can look glamorous in stills, but in real life she's not even likable enough. This is a bit mean, but I bet a lot of her friends actually hate her.

daskol said...

Which means they're afraid of her.

Mr. Forward said...

Why would they even want to replace Joe? Most convenient scapegoat ever. He’ll be lucky to get his 10%.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

the laugh is the nervous laugh of an evil nervous liar.

chickelit said...

Why is Kamala Harris even a serious contender? She needs to exit the national stage and go back to California.