Bidenfeld

Will Kamala Harris be the next Elaine Benes or the next Selina Meyer?

Kamala Harris is not the first woman vice president, just the first one in real life. Before her, VEEP’s Selina Meyer rose from playing second fiddle to the presidency. That character, portrayed by Kamala super fan Julia Louis-Dreyfus, is one model for Harris’ future. Another, also played by Louis-Dreyfus, is Elaine Benes. In his latest contribution for The Experiment, Jack Hughes breaks down whether Harris becomes president or the Biden administration ends up being about nothing.

by Jack Hughes

Actor Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a big booster of Vice President Kamala Harris, which makes sense as Louis-Dreyfus won six consecutive Emmy Awards playing Vice President Selina Meyer on the critically acclaimed HBO satire VEEP.  Meyer, like Harris, is a lawyer, Democrat, and Senator who became ‘V.P.’ (to President Hughes in a nice augury) having unsuccessfully sought the presidential nomination herself.

And yet, the situation Harris is in today is less like that of Meyer and more like that of another beloved Louis-Dreyfus character – Seinfeld’s Elaine Benes. Harris is the Elaine to Joe Biden’s Jerry Seinfeld, Nancy Pelosi’s George Costanza, and, yes, Chuck Schumer’s Cosmo Kramer. The relationship dynamic and interplay between the four will decide if the Biden Administration is a success or a show about nothing.

Let’s start with the titular lead characters, Joe and Jerry. In art as in life, both are the best known and most successful personalities among the cast. They’re liked for their generally good-humored joke cracking and an even-steven balanced approach to life. Things seem to always even out for them, if one friend (or party faction) is up another is down, meaning they’re a perfect personification of the balanced moderate middle. 

It might help to think Biden’s Oval Office as Seinfeld’s apartment on the show. Each week the three other characters show up and share the latest insanity that’s befallen them. For example, Schumer – a native New Yorker who bears an uncanny physical resemblance to Kramer – might burst in to explain the current craziness happening on the Senate floor: “You know this whole place is going vrrrrrrrrrrrrrt, downhill!”

Jerry and Kramer’s relationship was rooted in the fact they’re neighbors – living on the same floor of their shared building. Biden and Schumer were longtime political neighbors as denizens of the Senate where they sat on committees together and, once, two desks apart on the Senate floor. With a razor thin majority, Schumer promises to have zany Kramer storylines thanks to Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

Jerry and George, in turn, were the two who’d been friends the longest – having known each other since school. Biden and Pelosi have known each other for decades too. One of their real-life encounters from the late 1980s could’ve been a Seinfeld episode, though the show hadn’t yet aired. Biden invited Pelosi to a party and introduced her around as LPGA golfer Nancy Lopez. She played along so as not to disappoint.

Pelosi and Costanza are kindred spirits, then, enjoying the occasional role play and both burdened by bad luck. At the apex of his career, Costanza was forced to endure the rantings and ravings of New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. At the apex of her career, Pelosi was forced to endure the rantings and ravings of New York yahoo Donald Trump (and, earlier, former Texas Rangers owner George W. Bush).

It might help to think Biden’s Oval Office as Seinfeld’s apartment.

Costanza was once accosted by the Van Buren Boys, a gang of young scofflaws named after the first U.S. President from New York, who pressured him to give one of their members a scholarship. Pelosi has often been accosted by the Squad, a gang of young lawmakers led by the U.S. Representative from New York Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who’ve recently pressured her and Congress to forgive student loans. 

But the glue that held the show together, as the pilot episode of Seinfeld proved by her absence, was Elaine. She was the most assertive, the most cultured, and the most confident. She held down a regular office job (and it’s not hard to imagine Elaine sitting listening to J. Peterman’s meandering stories being at least somewhat similar to what Harris has had to endure in the Senate and, maybe, now in the White House). 

Indeed, much like Harris with Biden, Elaine made herself an invaluable and trusted advisor to all her bosses from Mr. Lippman at Pendant Publishing to the wealthy imperious business owner Mr. Pitt to the eccentric mail-order magnate J. Peterman. In fact, when Peterman suffers a nervous breakdown it’s Elaine who takes over the catalogue – as Harris would for Biden, if God forbid, anything was to happen to him.

Louis-Dreyfus briefly reprised her role as Elaine Benes in a 2016 Saturday Night Live Democratic debate sketch where her character asked an audience question to Senator Bernie Sanders (played by Seinfeld co-creator Larry David) calling on him to explain how he was going to breakup the banks. Harris, for her part, would challenge the real Bernie Sanders in the debates during the 2020 nomination contest.

While Joe Biden has appeared on other NBC programs, notably Parks & Recreation, he never interacted with Elaine Benes on Seinfeld. Still, he became friends with Julia Louis-Dreyfus – once inviting her to have lunch with him in his West Wing office and join him for a ride in his motorcade. When Louis-Dreyfus was diagnosed with cancer, Biden, who lost his son Beau to the disease, called to see if he could help her.

Still, Seinfeld is a cautionary about how groups can bring out the worst in each other.

Over 76 million Americans watched the series finale (more than the number who voted Trump) when Judge Vandelay rendered final verdict on Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine – “I do not know how or under what circumstances the four of you found each other. But your callous indifference…and utter disregard for everything that is good and decent…has rocked the very foundation upon which our society is built.”

Meyer went on to become the 47th President of the United States. That’s an act Harris wants to follow.

Joe, Nancy, Chuck, and Kamala will want a better fate than that of their fictional counterparts – perhaps following in the footsteps of the actors who made the four famous. Seinfeld ended his show at its very peak (as confirmed in the recently-viral interview with the late Larry King). Jerry went out on top, and Joe will do so too – avoiding any risk of cancellation by not running to get renewed for another ‘season’. 

The actor who portrayed George Costanza, Jason Alexander, has done quite a bit for the Democratic Party since the show – including a Seinfeld reunion fundraiser in 2020 – and he even used a classic Costanza quote to burn Texas Senator Ted Cruz tweeting “the jerk store called and they’re running out of you.” After her term as Speaker ends, it’s a safe bet Nancy Pelosi will spend her time in much the same way.

Kramer’s Michael Richards did stand-up and yada, yada, yada…he doesn’t anymore.

No, if anyone should be optimistic about the post-Seinfeld/Bidenfeld era it’s Kamala Harris. Julia Louis-Dreyfus won an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her portrayal of Elaine Benes, but, again, she won six Emmys for Lead Actress playing Selena Myers. And, as fans of VEEP know, Meyer went on to become the 47th President of the United States. That’s an act Harris wants to follow.

Jack Hughes is a communications consultant based in Canada. His previous contributions to The Experiment include “Same of Thrones,” “Tippecanoe and Agnew Anew,” “Harris / Shuri 2020,” “What Would Nixon Do?” “Firth and Firthiness,” and “The Ballot of Bill McKay,” among others. His inexplicably extensive writings on Dan Quayle are “The Unusual Suspect,” “The Unusual Suspect II,” “The GOPfather” and “Porqua, CoQau?” His most recent contribution was Connect with him on LinkedIn here.  

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