The Disconnected Controller: Kamala’s Quest for Leadership in a Hurricane

There’s an image that comes to mind—one that brilliantly captures the current state of Kamala Harris's involvement in disaster management. When my eldest daughter was a toddler, she desperately wanted to play video games but, not quite comprehending the mechanics, I would hand her an unplugged controller. She would sit there, happily pressing buttons, utterly convinced she was controlling the action on screen. It’s a memory that comes flooding back every time I hear Vice President Kamala Harris claim she’s trying to "lead" during a crisis like the looming Hurricane Milton—except this time, the stakes are a little higher, and the controller’s still very much unplugged.

The good Vice President, fresh off another attempt to insert herself into a situation where she has no actual power, recently took to CNN to accuse Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis of "playing political games" by—wait for it—allegedly avoiding her phone calls. One imagines Harris gripping her disconnected controller, pressing buttons furiously, all while believing she’s somehow steering the state’s response to an impending Category 5 hurricane. DeSantis, however, seems blissfully unaware of her increasingly frantic button-mashing.