Kamala Harris and the “Competence Downshift”
Back in 2019, a study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that white liberals deploy what the researchers described as a “patronizing competence downshift” when talking to black people.
In short, white liberals either deliberately or unconsciously dumb down their language when they are talking to minorities.
White conservatives, however, don’t feel the need to employ this “competence downshift.” They talk the same way regardless of skin color.
The study also showed Democrat politicians use fewer words related to competence when speaking to black audiences than they do when speaking to white audiences. Conservative politicians, on the other hand, don’t.
The other day, I heard a painful clip from Kamala Harris that instantly made me think of this “competence downshift” study from 2019.
Earlier this week, Kamala did an interview on a black-centered radio show called “The Morning Hustle” where she confirmed that, just like white liberals, she thinks she has to talk to black people like they’re children.
Now, as I always say, to get the full impact of Kamala’s words, you really have to read them out loud to yourself. Only this time, read it as if you’re talking to a toddler:
“Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So basically, that’s wrong.”
In my February 2019 column “How is Kamala’s pandering not insulting,” I included a tweet from Politico, which quoted Kamala saying:
“I am black and I am proud of it. I was born black and I’ll die black and I am proud of it. And I am not gonna make any excuses for it, for anybody, because they don’t understand.”
“Gonna?”
Kamala Harris using “gonna” instead of “going to” is definitely an example of “competence downshift.”
I said of that quote:
No, I understand perfectly, Kamala.
You think the only way to win the Democrat nomination is to pander to blacks in the most insulting way possible.
Blacks, according to Kamala, listen to the rap music, smoke the marijuana cigarette and hang with they homies. They don’t have Brahmin mothers with whom they traveled the world.
So Kamala talks about rap music, pot-smoking and her skin color the same way Hillary employed a fake black accent and deployed the hot sauce.
How long before Kamala does a townhall where she encourages the audience to feel free to ax her anything?
But Kamala’s earlier patronizing pales in comparison to that clip from “The Morning Hustle.”
Now, no matter the race of her audience, Kamala Harris always has trouble speaking like an articulate adult. She’s incapable of speaking extemporaneously and often wanders off on some verbal cul-de-sac from which she cannot escape.
But talking to a black audience like she’s addressing a room full of 3-year-olds really takes the cake.
And the fact is, all of Kamala’s public speaking problems stem from the same thing.
She’s agonizingly insecure and doesn’t have a single authentic bone in her body.
Charlie Spiering posted this awkward clip of Kamala speaking at the White House on Monday:
Ignore the absurdity of what she said and just watch her face and listen to the tone of her voice.
Without even seeing the audience, you can tell that Kamala is speaking to a group of black people, can’t you? Because there it was, the old competence downshift.
As Jesse Kelly said of that clip:
Kamala is easier to understand when you accept she’s actually just an extremely insecure, nervous teenage girl who managed to become Vice President. All jokes aside, she’s very uncomfortable in her own skin. That’s why the weird voices. And the laughing.
He’s absolutely right. Kamala Harris is not comfortable in her own skin. The woman has no idea who she is, how she feels, what she thinks, or how to relate to other human beings.
And every time she opens her mouth, she proves it.
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