Dumb and Dumber

Dumb and Dumber is a 1994 “buddy comedy” starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels as two inept and socially awkward best friends who share an apartment in Providence, RI. Carrey plays the role of Lloyd Christmas, a goofy chip-toothed slacker, while Daniels portrays Harry Dunne, his ditzy and air-headed roommate.

When they both get fired from their jobs – Lloyd as a limousine driver and Harry as a dog groomer – they decide to drive cross-country to return a briefcase full of money that they discovered, unaware of its contents or that the owner purposely left it as a ransom payment for her kidnapped husband. The resulting antics are too crazy and convoluted to describe but suffice it to say that Lloyd and Harry blow the money and wind up having to walk home from Aspen, Colorado to Providence.

I have never seen the movie and have no intention of doing so… and yet, the plot seems to be playing itself out right before our eyes. However, instead of Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels in the title roles, this real-life drama stars Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

Harris is well-known for her verbal gaffes, such as when she told not one but two different audiences that 220 million Americans had died in the past several months. Since the U.S. population currently stands at 330 million, you would think it would have made the evening news if 2/3 of all Americans had died over the course of 90 days.

Kamala is also queen of the “word salads”, an indiscernible mixture of pat phrases and clumsy cliches that leave her listeners with their heads spinning. When asked a question by a reporter that requires an unscripted answer, Ms. Harris verbally treads water in a lame attempt to run out the clock. Gesturing wildly with her hands and nodding her head like it’s on a swivel, Harris almost inevitably ends her non-answers with an uncomfortable – and very unnerving – laugh.

And did you know that she was raised in a middle-class neighborhood? If not, you won’t have to wait very long to find out because Harris invariably begins every question posed to her with the same (inaccurate) biographical information. Ask her about inflation, energy production, illegal immigration, or what she had for breakfast that morning, and Harris will default to her mythological upbringing as she tries to figure out what to say next.

Let’s just say that the wheels on her yellow cognitive school bus may go round and round, but they also turn very, very slowly.

Then there’s her running mate, Tim Walz, otherwise known as Kamala’s security blanket. After all, in her first interview since being nominated, Ms. Harris chose not to go it alone. Instead, she brought Tim along to nod his approval every time she cleared her throat.

Together, they are the best comedy duo since Laurel and Hardy or Martin and Lewis. Left alone, they are absolute trainwrecks. It’s just a matter of when, not if, they go off the rails.

The funniest part of their slapstick routine is when Harris and Walz try to convince voters that they are the outsiders who are riding to America’s rescue. Virtually every campaign rally features Harris promising to “fix things” on Day One. What the sitting Vice President of the United States – who frequently brags about being the “last person in the room” whenever Joe Biden makes a decision – fails to mention is that she has been in power since January 20, 2021… a total of 1,343 days.

That’s a lot of Day Ones.

Not to be undone, Walz told an audience in Bethlehem, PA last week that "It doesn't have to be this way. We can't afford four more years of this." Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the current administration.

Dumb and Dumber was panned by the critics but grossed $127,175,374 in the United States, and $247,275,374 worldwide. The film also spawned an animated TV series, a 2003 prequel, and a 2014 sequel.

It remains to be seen whether the same people who flocked to the theaters to see Dumb and Dumber will flock to the polls to elect the modern-day versions of Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne. Hopefully, they will realize that mindless entertainment is one thing and governing the United States of America is another.

If not, we all may find ourselves walking back home to Providence.