Humility is not a virtue that comes naturally to politicians. After all, it takes an enormous amount of ego to believe that you are the person best suited to run the country and convince other people to vote for you.
But rarely do you ever see a politician explicitly denounce humility as Vice President Kamala Harris did during her weekend appearance on the podcast Call Her Daddy, which is known for its graphic discussions about sex.
The host of the podcast, Alex Cooper, asked Harris how she felt about recent comments by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AR), who said that her “kids keep me humble” and that “Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble.”
“I don’t think she understands that there are a whole lot of women out here who are not aspiring to be humble,” Harris said. “A whole lot of women out here who have a lot of love in their life, family in their life, and children in their life.”
In a day and age where pride is celebrated as a virtue, Harris’s condemnation of the virtue of humility should not entirely come as a shock. But it is remarkable to hear someone explicitly say that humility is not something to be aspired to. After all, humility is widely recognized as a virtue and not a vice.
But Harris has explicitly associated herself with a rejection of humility. And at the same time, she sought to equate this rejection of humility with love — an action that, more than any other, requires humility.
Humility is a virtue that is rooted in selflessness, and it is one that should be pursued regardless of sex or status. And it has been recognized by civilizations across history as a crucial attribute for maintaining good moral character. Many a character, in history and fiction alike, from Hector in the Ancient Greek epic The Iliad to Napoleon Bonaparte, have met their downfalls because of their rejection of humility and embrace of pride or hubris.
A humble person may accomplish great things but neither boasts nor draws attention to himself. Rather, a humble person will praise others for the accomplishment while downplaying one’s own role. A humble person may also aspire to accomplish great things, but this aspiration is rooted in service to others and not in the aggrandizement of himself.
Ever since Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the standard-bearer of the Democratic Party, she has embraced the notion that she is the savior of the party as she gleefully inches closer to the job she so desperately wants. To any honest observer, she is running for president because she wants the job, not because she wants to serve.
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When the pop star Charlie XCX declared Harris to be “brat” as some sort of perverse compliment in line with the singer’s new album of the same name, her campaign and surrogates eagerly embraced it. And now, a month before Election Day, the vice president has declared that humility is out and deadly pride is in.
Of course, former President Donald Trump, with his famously enormous ego, is hardly a paragon of humility. But in this race for the White House, only Harris is out to convince voters that they need a president who is a self-proclaimed prideful brat.