Americans can be forgiven for wondering if the politicians they elect are actually just paid actors, given how quickly our elected officials change their colors, and their accents.
A few weeks ago people noticed that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee vice president Kamala Harris all of a sudden developed a Southern drawl when addressing a crowd in Georgia. It was strange coming out of the mouth of a woman who sounds exactly like someone raised in California, which she was.
Now, the most animated and over the top of the so-called “Squad” of progressive Democrats, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is doing the same thing. The Democratic National Convention opened the night of Monday, August 20, and Ocasio-Cortez took the stage to stump for Harris. Using her signature histrionic style—big eyes, rolling head movements, and wild arm gesticulations—Ocasio-Cortez seemed to believe she was channeling a black Southern baptist preacher.
It was a strangely uneven piece of acting, as some noticed that she seemed to switch accents and cadence on certain isolated phrases, such as “our way of life.” The effect is uncanny.
Predictably, people were not shy about expressing their opinions on social media. One user wrote that “AOC” seemed to have discovered a “new accent,” pointing out how jarring it was for the Democrat Party of “wealthy elites” to try to sound down-home.
This isn’t the first time that hard-left Democrats have been accused of aping the speech and affect of traditional black Civil Rights-era leaders. People accused Ocasio-Cortez of doing so in 2023 when a video circulated of her putting on this manner when addressing the organization run by Al Sharpton (one wonders if he felt upstaged).
Weirdly, the former bartender from Brooklyn, born to Puerto Rican parents, sounded like she’d just come out of a half-price-draft night at a Southern honky tonk when she referred to her past as a bartender and said, “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.”
When criticized, Ocasio-Cortez usually falls back on a bratty, “sassy girl” tone. Responding to her critics on Twitter, she said “Folks talking about my voice can step right off.”
