It was enough to make Mel Blanc blush.
Vice President Kamala Harris, whose “transparently fake” speaking styles have drawn public attention before, is back in the social media spotlight after a Labor Day speech in Detroit on Monday that featured a bellicose Southern drawl unusual in a figure who was born in Oakland, California, and spent much of her teen years in Montreal, Canada.
And comparisons to a classic cartoon character were inevitable.
“Kamala Harris turned into Foghorn Leghorn,” one conservative social media user commenter wrote in post on X.
Kamala Harris turned into Foghorn Leghorn
in Detroit, Michigan vs. in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania pic.twitter.com/jdbso3IT86
— AJ Huber (@Huberton) September 2, 2024
Foghorn Leghorn is the loudmouthed but likeable rooster from the “Looney Tunes” franchise originally voiced by the master of cartoon comedy Mel Blanc.
He’s boastful but funny, given to over-the-top rhetoric and hyperbolic similes that play perfectly in an animated universe where the only thing that matters is a few brief moments of entertainment.
Harris is boastful, of course, but she isn’t funny — at least not in any kind of way that’s good for the American people. And she’s running for the presidency of the United States, which matters a good deal more than a few laughs at a Warner Bros. cartoon.
And her latest attempt to appeal to voters with transparently fake “authenticity” was a lightning rod for bad reviews.
“That girl, I say that girl is about as sharp as a bowling ball and as organized as a plate of spaghetti.” pic.twitter.com/63MMx0DGZh
— KiTTenKaT (@KiTTenKaTmeower) September 3, 2024
Elsa Kurt, a conservative comedian and author, hit it perfectly:
Kamala Harris channeled Foghorn Leghorn in her latest accent appropriation. Foghorn wasn’t pleased…. #KamalaHarris #foghornkamala pic.twitter.com/QqaHB8EnVB
— ElsaKurt_Official (@elsakurtshow) September 3, 2024
Some even took offense on Leghorn’s behalf.
That’s an insult to Foghorn Leghorn Her voice is just as horrible as Hillary’s. Nails on a chalkboard
— (@roseandkim) September 3, 2024
Blanc, who died in 1989, was an entertainer’s entertainer — the voice behind iconic cartoon figures like Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Woody Woodpecker wasn’t political in public (so different from contemporary celebrities). In his New York Times obituary, the only mention of politics is an honorary position as mayor of Pacific Palisades, California.
But the comparisons in this case are fitting.
The current vice president the face of a cartoon campaign, one without any foundation other than she’s not Joe Biden — the president defenestrated by his own party.
Will Trump beat Kamala Harris?
And she’s not Donald Trump — the former president who retains the loyalty of tens of millions of Americans for his first tenure in office and is a serious threat to Democrats for the loyalties of blacks and Hispanics who benefited from his administration.
Against that, Harris has the marshaled forces of the establishment media (don’t expect to see the Kamala Harris-Foghorn Leghorn comparisons on the evening news), Hollywood celebrities, and pretty much every upper-crust aspect of American — and Western — society.
She’s heavy on big-name endorsements, light on policy or any kind of concrete statement about the destruction her administration promises for the American economy, its foreign policy, and the government’s responsibilities to American citizens and in the world.
The best she can offer is fake laughter, buffoonish assurances assurances, and fake accents.
And she’s got 62 days left to keep fooling American voters.
