Critics are tearing into Kamala Harris for her latest accent use and are slamming her for ‘code switching.’
With just two months until the presidential election, old attack lines are reemerging that claim the vice president speaks differently when she is in front of different crowds.
‘New Kamala accent just dropped,’ one X user wrote in response to a clip of Harris speaking to a teacher’s union at a high school in Detroit, Michigan on Monday.
In her remarks, social media users claim that Harris adopted an urban accent to relate to the working class crowd.
‘You may not be a union member but you better thank a union member for the five day work week,’ Harris said in a tone of voice atypical of the one she uses in her usual stump speeches.
She went on: ‘You better thank a union member for sick leave. You better thank a union member for paid leave. You better thank a union member for vacation time.’
‘I’m from California. We all talk like this,’ an X user sarcastically wrote alongside a phonetic spelling of how Harris spoke in her remarks: ‘I’m gonna make sure to thanka union memba today.’
At another point an audience member shouted something about her future beyond just the 2024 election.
Harris, still employing this new accent, replied with a large smile and laugh before leaning over the podium and saying: ‘Let’s just get through the next 64 days.’
‘New Kamala accent just dropped,’ one user wrote on X.
Harris was in Detroit on Labor Day speaking with union members at Northwestern High School’s gymnasium about the contributions of unions to the labor force.
The vice president is half Jamaican and half Indian. The Trump campaign has accused her of using her blackness to her advantage when it suits her and has pointed to the fact that she touted her Indian-American heritage when she became a U.S. Senator in 2017.
Trump also said during a hostile interview with the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago last month in an interview that Harris only started ‘promoting’ her blackness when she ran for president.
‘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,’ he said during the annual convention. ‘So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?’
Discovery Institute journalist Jonathan Choe noted on X, formerly Twitter, that it was a code switch Harris was using to relate more with a predominantly black and urban audience listening to her remarks on Monday.
‘Kamala Harris code switching again as she busts out a new accent at a rally in Detroit,’ he wrote.
The latest criticism comes after Harris was also mocked in July for faking a southern accent during a campaign rally in Atlanta, Georgia.
‘You all helped us win in 2020 and we gonna do it again in 2024,’ Harris told voters in her fake Southern accent.
Harris commonly slips into a Southern accent when speaking to voters in Southern communities. The VP grew up in San Francisco, California and spent her high school years in Montreal, Canada.
She faced similar criticism on the campaign trail in 2020 when she extending her vowels during an even in Florida when she said: ‘We will tell them we were hangin’ out in a parking lot this particular Saturday afternoon with Kamala and all our friends.’
Outkick writer Ian Miller posted of the latest accent use on Monday: ‘At some point, Kamala’s going to speak in England and adopt a full on British accent and everyone will pretend like it’s totally normal.’
Outkick writer Ian Miller posted of the latest accent use: ‘At some point, Kamala’s going to speak in England and adopt a full on British accent and everyone will pretend like it’s totally normal.’
‘BREAKING: Kamala Harris unveils a new urban accent in Detroit,’ the pro-MAGA account End Wokeness wrote.
‘This is cringe pandering,,’ another wrote. ‘Kamala is using her new ‘accent’ when talking to a certain demographic of people.’