Remember the old TV commercials about the Maytag Repairman, whose machines were so indestructible he was the loneliest guy in town? Kamala Harris is Madam Maytag — the loneliest girl in DC. Last year, Harris was a history-making figure who was historically historic. This year, she’s Robinson Crusoe on Mars. 

The most recent poll gives Harris an approval/disapproval rating of 29 to 63. That’s almost where China’s approval rating (20%) stands after killing six million people.

Last week Harris got COVID — remember that disease that killed 600,000 Americans after Joe Biden vowed to “shut it down” — and no one even pretended to care. CNN’s White House correspondent M.J. Lee this week told us, “Kamala Harris has tested positive for COVID . . . She is not considered a close contact of President Biden.” Why would she be close to Biden? He wants her advice about as much as he wants Ben Shapiro’s.

Harris was supposed to be the person who got the border sorted out. Instead, things got messier than ever. She was tasked with pushing for voting rights, and gave an urgent Martin Luther King Jr. Day speech in which she claimed voting rights were under assault “in Georgia and across our nation.” Yet Georgia and our nation ignored her, because Georgia and Arizona get to set their own state voting laws no matter how much inane bloviation issues from the Beltway. When she was sent to France to smooth things out with  Emmanuel Macron, who is annoyed with the US because we iced them out of a deal to sell submarines to Australia, Macron didn’t answer a reporter who asked whether he had forgiven the US. 

While her list of achievements as vice president remains a blank sheet of paper, her speeches have at least, in dark times, been consistently hilarious. Here’s Kamala on her administration’s wonderful COVID strategy, which resulted in only 150% of the deaths under the previous administration: “It is time for us to do what we have been doing. And that time is every day.”

Kamala’s Ukraine explainer: “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.” Kamala on the cosmos: “Space is exciting. It spurs our imaginations, and it forces us to ask big questions. Space, it affects us all and it connects us all.” Sources say Harris managed to say this without being anywhere near a bong.

As Harris’ approval ratings have tanked harder with the public than “Morbius” did at the box office, she flung “soul-destroying criticism” at all the staffers who let her keep saying dumb things. 

Possibly as a result, Harris has already lost her lead spokeswoman, her communications director, her deputy press secretary, her deputy chief of staff and her national security adviser. This month, Harris’ top aide, chief of staff Tina Flournoy, quit after barely a year on the job, making it a total of 12 people who’ve left their positions under Harris as veep. Harris is so toxic she even managed to cause mousy Jill Biden to lose her spit. After Harris went after Joe Biden in a debate, Jill suggested that Harris go make love to herself, though not in those words. Then, when the prospect of selecting Harris as running mate came up, the First-Lady-to-be said, “There are millions of people in the United States. Why do we have to choose the one who attacked Joe?”

Answer: because Joe had cornered himself by vowing to pick a woman of color, which given the demographic makeup of the political class (among 150 senators and governors, only five were women of color), was like going to Ruth’s Chris Steak House and asking for the vegan menu. If she ever makes it to the presidency, it’ll be because Biden can’t finish his term, not because America wants her there.

Harris came into office with so much excitement her fans were expecting a feminist Kamalot. Instead they got Kam-a-little: the kind of veep who makes Walter Mondale look like he belongs on Mount Rushmore.

Kyle Smith is critic-at-large at National Review.