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One of the most repellent features of the progressive mindset is the eagerness to give up one’s freedom and autonomy for what they believe to be the safety and security of nanny-state protection. They truly believe in the benevolence and wisdom of the authoritarian State, and are happy to submit to it. This was creepily exemplified last Monday on former actress Drew Barrymore’s daytime talk show when Vice President Kamala Harris stopped by for a chat, in what Newsbusters described as “a gag-tastic abomination” of an episode.
The Drew Barrymore Show is surprisingly, and perhaps disturbingly, popular. As of last November, The Wrap reports, the No. 3 most-watched syndicated talk show in both households ratings and among total viewers, behind only the equally vapid celebrity gabfest The Kelly Clarkson Show and Live With Kelly and Mark, whoever they are. Barrymore’s show also tied for second place among that all-important 25-to-54-year-old viewer demographic. On social media, it boasts tens of millions of engagements and is within sight of reaching half a million followers.
Barrymore, born into the Hollywood royalty of the Barrymore clan, has been a celebrity in that hermetic Hollywood bubble since she was a child – and fame was not kind to her, as it rarely is to children. She was a notorious Studio 54 partier with stints in rehab and a mental institution before being emancipated from her parents – all by the age of 15.
Today she is the queen of white, female, liberal obsequiousness on daytime TV, which is no small achievement. Remember when she literally got on her knees before guest Dylan Mulvaney, a faux trans huckster whose misogynistic shtick celebrating his “girlhood” won him his 15 minutes of notoriety and all kinds of corporate endorsements? Barrymore was absolutely excoriated on social media for degrading herself before a biological male who got rich mocking femininity. Then came the awkward Kamala Harris interview, after which one commenter on X nailed it with this tweet: “Drew Barrymore interviews everybody like they have coke and she doesn’t have any money.”
On Monday’s episode, rather than engage the epically incompetent Vice President in a discussion of politics, the state of the union, and the upcoming election, Barrymore instead treated the opportunity like a personal therapy session, asking Kamala if she could help the thrice-divorced actress find a love match (the VP’s own marriage to “Second Gentleman” Doug Emhoff apparently began with a friend setting them up).
As the show wound down, Barrymore told Kamala, “I appreciate you more every single day. Not only thank you for going out and championing on behalf of all of us, but thank you for being the mother, the woman, the sister, and the daughter.”
“Mother” is a little rich, considering that Kamala has no biological children and is currently “championing” the right of women all over the country to commit infanticide when it’s convenient.
Kamala responded with this bit of profound advice: “Choose to be around people who love you, who care about you, who are going to be honest with you…
“My staff, for example, sometimes they’ll show me little things that just amuse me,” such as “apparently, some people love to talk about the way I laugh,” referring to her trademark cackling at inappropriate moments.
Barrymore jumped in: “Oh, yes! I love your laugh!” But it was clearly a sore point for Kamala. She defended it by explaining that “I have my mother’s laugh. And I grew up around a bunch of women, in particular, who laughed from the belly. They laughed.
“I think it’s really important for us,” she continued, “to remind each other and our younger ones, don’t be confined to other people’s perception about what this looks like and who you — how you should act in order to be, right? It’s really important. It’s important.” Cheers and applause from the all-female audience.
“I love your laugh and I love that message,” Barrymore reiterated.
But that wasn’t the most embarrassing part.
“I keep thinking in my head” – it’s unclear where else she would be thinking, but anyway – “that we all need a mom,” Barrymore said as she inched even closer to Kamala, who sat at the farthest possible end of the 12-foot couch, her legs crossed away from Barrymore in the classic body language pose which signals “Keep your distance.”
“I’ve been thinking that we really all need a tremendous hug in the world right now,” Barrymore continued, “but in our country, we need you to be ‘Momala’ of the country.”
This vomitous sycophancy brought on more cheers and applause. Kamala, who is never good unscripted (or even when she is following a script), couldn’t think of anything to say but “I know. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah, no, I know.”
As if that weren’t embarrassing enough, Barrymore then clasped both of Kamala’s hands and added, “We need a great protector,” prompting the VP to ramble about how in recent years a “perverse approach to what strength looks like” has dominated the culture, “which is to suggest that the measure of one’s strength is based on who you beat down, instead of what we know the true measure of your strength is based on who you lift up.”
Kamala added that caring about people’s feelings is “what we want from leaders… And that’s the kind of strength that we want.” Again, cheers and applause.
Even left-wing media like the progressive Daily Beast labeled the interview “the cringiest thing you’ll see this week.”
But it was more than just cringe-worthy. Barrymore’s gushing plea for the Vice President to be America’s mommy demonstrates the left’s infantile need to cuddle up under the wing of the parental substitute of the State. This impulse is completely alien to conservatives.
Contrary to what emotion-based progressives like Drew Barrymore feel, Americans don’t need a hug from our leaders. We don’t need our leaders to be our parents. We don’t need a “great protector.” We don’t need leaders to “lift up” our self-esteem.
We need leaders who have the spine to defend our freedoms and the vision to guide our country back to greatness. We need leaders we can respect, who respect the American people in turn and who don’t condescend to us like children. We need leaders who understand how to wield strength on the world stage, not just offer platitudes about it on a talk show couch.