As the 2024 presidential election draws nearer, and support for Vice President Kamala Harris expands while Trump’s credibility seems to be increasingly dwindling, MAGA followers and even Trump himself have resorted to attacking Harris for a ‘fake accent’ in their attempt to knock her Black supporters down while simultaneously trying to dictate what their speech should sound like.
On Monday, an official campaign account of the former president called the “Trump War Room,” posted a side-by-side of two clips of Harris delivering speeches in Detroit and Pittsburgh hours apart, with a caption reading: “Let’s see if you can spot the difference…”
The post is one out of many shared by Trump’s supporters targeting the vice president for her “fake Black accent,” and they even created fake Tiger Woods quote about it.
Months ago, Republicans tried to stir up the same drama after Harris spoke to a crowd in Atlanta, accusing her of changing her accent to pander to Black Atlantans. “Earlier this week, look up the clip, she went down to Georgia and started talking with a fake Southern accent,” J.D. Vance said in a speech near Phoenix. “What the hell is that all about? Kamala Harris grew up in Canada. They don’t talk like that in Vancouver or Quebec or wherever she came from, doesn’t matter.”
Trump himself has even made comments in the past about the authenticity of Harris’ Blackness while addressing the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago in an interview.
“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” Trump said while addressing the group’s annual convention.
While these comments have been ignored by Harris and her supporters–and there is no one way to be Black– they also stand to signal desperation on the part of the Trump campaign.
