Harris did change her accent — but we all do it, don't we?

Kamala Harris is on a roll.

- WILL GORE

Joe Biden’s decision – at last – to withdraw as the Democratic Party candidate in the upcoming election has changed the character and momentum of the entire presidential race. And Harris has the wind in her sails.

Republicans seem baffled and have spent the last fortnight trying to figure out how best to respond to the changed circumstances. Donald Trump and JD Vance being who they are, it’s no great surprise that their instinct is to attack through thinly veiled misogyny and xenophobia.

First, we had Trump questioning Harris’s identity as a Black woman: “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 at a conference of the National Association of Black Journalists. “So, I don’t know,” he continued, “is she Indian? Or is she Black?”

Presumably, Trump doesn’t really think this is a binary choice. After all, he is living proof that it’s quite possible to be several things at once – in his case, those happen to be a bigot and a performative ass.