Deb Fischer’s Husband Doesn’t Need An Excuse For Not Shaking Kamala’s Hand

It was supposed to be a major palm to the face when right-wingers on social media zealously noted that Republican Sen. Deb Fischer’s husband’s hands were full, and thus he was unable to accept Kamala Harris’s handshake at last week’s Senate swearing-in ceremony. But more to the point, it doesn’t matter why he didn’t accept it, and nobody is entitled to an excuse from him.

What played out online was one of those vapid political mini-controversies enjoyed exclusively by Twitter nerds. First, some Democrat fluffers posted a video clip on Monday appearing to show Fischer’s elderly husband, Bruce, ignoring a handshake offer from Vice President Harris before posing with her and his wife for a photo. Don Lemon shared the video and, predictable as ever, called Bruce “an old, racist piece of sh-t.” Joy Reid on her MSNBC program said the moment “shows … there is not an equal reverence for our democracy in both of these two parties.”

But what the original clip failed to capture was Bruce’s right hand gripping a cane while his left one was holding a copy of the Bible, which could be why he didn’t return the handshake. But if it wasn’t, that’s his right. Maybe he doesn’t care for Harris or something she represents. That’s his right.

I suspect full hands is not why Bruce didn’t engage in the gesture. An extended video appears to show his senator wife pressing him to stand in between herself and Harris for the swearing-in. He seems reluctant, avoiding eye contact with the vice president, and Harris says in jest, “It’s OK, I won’t bite” and “Don’t worry.” At the end, Harris shakes Deb Fischer’s hand in congratulations and then extends the same gesture to Bruce, who only says, “Thank you,” still avoiding eye contact.

It’s an undeniably awkward encounter. But let’s not pretend that because the election is over it’s time to let bygones be bygones and that it was a shocking erosion of civility to skirt the nicety. We are so past that era of politics, and it’s not the fault of people like Bruce. If after nearly a decade in which Democrats have ruined reputations and livelihoods by way of legal harassment, harmful medical mandates, and accusations of racism, fascism, and all forms of ugly bigotry, a rejected handshake is the retaliation, they’re getting off pretty easy.

Maybe Bruce Fischer hates Kamala Harris. Maybe he has no regard for her or her party. Maybe he believes she has cheapened our politics. Maybe he thinks it’s an insult that she thought she could be president. And maybe declining to shake her hand is how he wanted to express it.

I don’t know if that’s how he feels, but if he does feel that way, I’m not going to undermine those sincere feelings of contempt by pointing out he was gripping a cane and holding a Bible. Democrats harbor those sentiments and more and have done far worse to let the nation know it.

Kamala Harris, in the desperate final days of her absurd campaign for president, delivered remarks outside the vice president’s formal residence in Washington, and it was nothing short of appalling. Using an immediately discredited and very obviously campaign-coordinated article in The Atlantic from the previous day, plus a New York Times interview from a disgruntled former Trump administration official, she stated in her official capacity that her opponent is “increasingly unhinged and unstable.” She promised that in a second Trump term, he would be a president of “unchecked power,” adding that his behavior has shown him to be “deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous.” She stopped just short of officially declaring Trump an enemy of the state.

In 2022, her boss, Joe Biden, called Trump supporters “a threat to the very soul of this country.” And in his memorable, hell-themed Philadelphia speech that year, he accused them of a “blind loyalty to a single leader and a willingness to engage in political violence.”

These are the things they say and do in public in an ongoing effort to demean and intimidate innocent and unassuming Americans who may not vote Democrat. And nobody rushes to make excuses for them. They justify all of it. An unrequited handshake doesn’t really compare.

No one is entitled to signs of goodwill. Fischer didn’t spit on Harris. He said, “Thank you.”

Again, I have no idea if Bruce Fischer is upset about any of that. Maybe it was a matter of his hands being tied or something else equally innocuous. But I’m certainly not concerned if it wasn’t, and he doesn’t need anyone to excuse him either way.