Kamala Harris plays Hillary Clinton’s fake accent game
Ian Haworth
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We all know that politicians are essentially actors. On any given day, they can play the calm and collected leader, the stern and ruthless foreign policy expert, or the caring and empathetic family member. They’re none of these things, of course, but as long as they play the part convincingly enough and give the audience what they want, they’re allowed to get away with their own special brand of ineptitude.
But there are certain politicians who take this form of pandering to a whole other level by acting like a racial stereotype straight out of South Park to try and win over a crowd.
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Take Vice President Kamala Harris, the perpetual clueless babysitter of Biden administration problems, as an example. Not long after calling for an investment in “reduced population,” Harris traveled to Chicago’s South Side to celebrate Jesse Jackson’s retirement as the president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
One moment stood out, with Harris saying, “I said to the congressman, ‘I didn’t know he could preach like that.’”
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To understand what I mean, you need to listen to the clip.
Because that’s not how Harris talks. I don’t know what accent she was attempting to mimic, but it’s certainly not her own. It’s fair to assume that this is simply an example of Harris trying to fit in. It’s gross and, quite frankly, racist.
But it’s also, for some reason, completely normal.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) changed her accent while speaking to an audience at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network in 2019, saying there “ain’t nothing wrong” with being a bartender.
Sharpton seems to have this effect on politicians, with Pete Buttigieg chowing down on “fried chicken, macaroni and cheese and collard greens” during a 2019 meeting.
Then there’s the time President Joe Biden randomly played “Despacito” during a 2020 campaign event in Florida.
But who can forget the master of political pandering, Hillary Clinton? She whipped a Southern accent out of nowhere during a 2015 campaign event in South Carolina and has adjusted her accent depending on her audience on so many occasions that political pundits referred to her “black-cent” back in 2007.
She also claimed to carry hot sauce with her at all times while speaking with the morning radio show The Breakfast Club in 2016.
This leaves one question: Why do politicians choose to embarrass themselves with such shameless levels of pandering?
Well, there are two reasons. The first is that they think so little of their own voters that they’re convinced embracing base-level stereotypes for an afternoon is enough to win people over. The second reason is that people reward them for it.
Want politicians to stop engaging in this absurd charade in which they perform a cheap caricature of their current audience? Instead of voting for them, we should be laughing them out of the building, city, or ideally state every time they fake an accent, claim they just can’t live without hot sauce, or play “Despacito.”
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Ian Haworth (@ighaworth) is the host of Off Limits with Ian Haworth. You can also find him on Substack.