Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Unless your Vice President Kamala Harris.
That’s because Harris, who is from California, decided to pull off an impromptu southern accent during a campaign rally in Georgia.
Kamala unveils a new accent in Atlanta:
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 30, 2024
“You all helped us win in 2020 and we gonna do it again in 2024,” Harris told Atlanta rally goers while seemingly debuting the new accent.
Harris’ off-the-cuff attempt of a southern accent (in theory to pander to southern voters), echoes a similar move that Hillary Clinton notoriously pulled off during her time in politics.
Take a look at the similarities:
Why do they always do this? pic.twitter.com/XNdBEgwuFg
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 31, 2024
To no surprise, the criticism of Harris’ failed attempt at a southern accent spread like wild fire across social media.
“Kamala Harris went to speak in Atlanta and now has a southern accent,” OutKick founder Clay Travis said on X, including a clip of the moment. “Why do people do this? It’s just so transparently fake.
“Do people do this with any other regional accents?” Travis questioned in a subsequent post. “I don’t think so. No one goes to Massachusetts and suddenly talks like a Kennedy. It’s only the South.”
Travis’ post garnered several replies from critics of the vice president’s accent.
“It’s what sociopaths do,” one reply said.
“It’s called mirroring and it is a strong narcissistic tendency,” another user said.
The timing — and location — of Harris’ incident is important as Harris continues find her footing on the trail after being elevated to the top of the Democratic ticket last week, with Georgia being one of the key swing states likely to decide November’s election.
Former President Trump won the state by just over five percentage points in 2016, only to have President Biden narrowly flip it to his column by less than one percentage point in 2020.