Former Staffers Recall Crying, Going to Therapy Due to the "Toxic" Behavior of Kamala Harris

We'll get a lot of bullshit about the claim that "when men act like this, they get praised as 'tough,' but women are called 'bitches.'"

That's not true. Men who behave this way are routinely described as sociopaths.

And the feminists who claim that women must be permitted to behave sociopathically are just sociopaths themselves, trying to justify their sociopathic cruelty and narcissism as "just being 'tough.'"

Strange how all the very worse male behaviors are suddenly transformed into "stronk empowerment" when women indulge in them.

I can't wait until this ugly, charmless c*** is "president."

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The Politico story, published in June, detailed a VP's office "rife with dissent," and it was treated as a bombshell in DC political circles and on social media, but it didn't surprise staffers who worked for Harris before she became vice president of the United States. Some of them have been predicting it was a matter of time until stories of staff dysfunction started spilling out.

Insider interviewed 12 former Harris staffers about the atmosphere in Harris' offices when she was district attorney in San Francisco from 2004 until 2011, California's attorney general for six years after that, and a US senator from 2017 until her inauguration as President Joe Biden's No. 2 in January. Most of those staffers spoke on condition of anonymity to protect professional relationships, adding that Harris' job trajectory means it's well within reason she could become the most powerful person on the planet.

[Some] described Harris as unpredictable and at times demeaning to her staff over the years. She often hung up on her aides, berated them when she didn't think they were prepared enough for briefings, and had a reputation for churning through interns and lower-level staff, people told Insider.

In fairness, some of that sounds like fragile Millennial snowflake whining that the boss expects them to work.

But this is an object data-point:

Harris' turnover in the Senate was on the high end during her four years in the US Capitol's upper chamber. She ranked No. 9 of 114 senators for highest turnover from 2017 to 2020, the congressional database LegiStorm showed.

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Many former Harris staffers have been privately grumbling for years to reporters and among one another about their time working for her. Several said the latest media reports about staff dysfunction inside the vice president's wing of the White House were giving them flashbacks to what some have called low points in their careers, including some who have worked for other high-profile politicians.

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The Politico story "went around like wildfire," a former Harris staffer said. "So many people recognized themselves in it, or recognized treatment they had seen or treatment they had heard about and dismissed."

That former staffer forwarded the Politico story to their therapist with a note reviewed by Insider that read: "Rarely in life are we publicly vindicated." The staffer told Insider they sought therapy to "resolve trauma from the on-the-job abuse" when they found out Harris was going to be Biden's vice-presidential nominee.

Here's the "female sociopaths are better than male sociopaths because Stronk and Empowered" spin:

Another former Harris staffer who worked for her in the AG's office called the coverage "totally inevitable." That person added: "We could have foreseen this scrutiny. It seems to me to be more gendered, the idea that strong women are bitches and she's just another one."

No but sociopaths and malignant narcissists are despised by everyone, male and female, whether they themselves are male or female.

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One former Harris aide described the culture in the attorney general's office as "toxic" and "reactionary." There was "a sense of paranoia in that office that you never knew when she was going to snap at you."

When a man is disorganized, emotionally brittle and erratic, they just call him "tough," right?

Several staffers told Insider that Harris was known to call into her office and hang up on her staff if she didn't get answers she wanted from them.

One former staffer recalled a time when Harris got frustrated on the phone after a staffer she was looking for couldn't be located quickly. "I don't understand what's taking so long," Harris snapped before hanging up, the former staffer said. "And I'm just sitting there just shell-shocked."

Harris hung up on staffers "all the time," another former aide said. "If she called in to talk, and then changed her mind, she would just hang up the phone on you."

Hanging up on people in anger, as a routine method of terminating a call, is just "tough," right?

A man who just rudely, and kinda insanely, hangs up on people in anger is just "showing leadership," right?

Men get praised for bitchy behavior, right?

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Former Harris staffers said they were well acquainted with her preferred writing tool: Pilot Precise V7 Roller Ball pens.

"You had to always have one on your desk in case she ever asked for a pen," a former aide said. If you didn't, "you'd have to go get her one. She'd be, like, 'Not this one.'" The pens are "seared into everyone's brain."

A man who acts like a prima donna control freak is just "being alpha," right?

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Staffers who worked for Harris when she was attorney general are still perplexed by a 2011 settlement reached between the California DOJ and a top aide whom Harris brought in when she was first elected attorney general. Terri Carbaugh, who was chief deputy attorney general, mysteriously left Harris' staff with a $34,900 settlement check and a nondisclosure agreement, Insider first reported in July 2020.

That amount was just short of the $35,000 limit that would've had to have been approved by the Department of Finance, said a former California Justice Department official who worked there at the time of the Carbaugh settlement.

Carbaugh declined Insider's requests for comment about that settlement. Harris spokeswoman Singh, who is now her White House spokeswoman, declined to comment on the details of the dispute last July, but said Harris supported releasing Carbaugh from the NDA if Carbaugh wanted that.

Men who make sketchy NDA settlements with former employees, in an amount just shy of the level at which other people would have to hear the story and approve of the settlement, are just "tough" and "showing leadership ability," right?

Yeah, I remember everyone saying that about Matt Lauer.

posted by Ace at 01:23 PM

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