Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump reveal a stark contrast to American voters when they promise not to do anything "half a--ed" and complain of "s---hole countries," according to a new political analysis.
The Washington Post Monday released an in-depth analysis of how each presidential candidate utilizes swear words to connect to their respective bases and found two very different forms of messaging.
"With Trump, cursing tends to manifest as insult, or an accentuation of his anger," the Post reports. "Harris’s profanity tends to be an emphasizer...Among staffers or friends, she would deploy a humorous curse word to 'drop the mask a little bit and be real.'"
Gil Duran, a former communications director for Harris who now writes a newsletter about political language, argues that Harris' propensity for profanity may appear off-the-cuff but shows signs of political savvy.
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He pointed to an appearance last spring when Harris told young Asian and Pacific Islander Americans, "Sometimes people will open the door for you and leave it open. Sometimes they won’t. And then you need to kick that f---ing door down.”
"That’s what people wanted to hear," Duran reportedly said. "We’re not going to be kept out of the system by racism and sexism. We’re going to get in there one way or the other."
Harris can also use swearing to share a joke with her base, as she did at the Democratic National Convention in declaring her mother told her never do anything "half a--ed."
In an impromptu cooking video, Harris told her niece Meena, “You need to f---ing learn how to cook."
In contrast, as president, Trump notoriously called Haiti, El Salvador and African nations "s---hole countries," recently led supporters in a chant of "bulls---," and was caught in leaked video describing Harris as "so f---ing bad."
The Post reports voters don't appear to find cursing in general a "big effing deal" but can hear a difference in the two candidates' rhetoric.
"Profanity is in the ear of the listener, and not all bad words are created equal," according to the Post. "Our reaction to them depends on various factors, including our upbringing, how offensive we consider the word to be, and whether we identify with the person saying them."
The Post argues Harris' running mate Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) successfully threaded the needle with his reliance on a "folksy Midwest dad brand" swear word he turned into a rallying cry: “Mind your own damn business."
Trump's running mate, Sen. J. D. Vance, is less prone to cursing but raised eyebrows when he said Harris could "go to hell."
Benjamin Bergen, a University of California San Diego cognitive sciences professor who specializes in profanity, told the Post Harris' humor and Trump's rage likely have a stronger effect when laced with cursewords.
"You get blood flow to the extremities, your pupils dilate, your blood pressure increases," he said. "You get a hit of adrenaline."
Timothy Jay, a psychology professor at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts who studies the psycholinguistics of cursing, said Harris and Trump also offer voters key information that makes it worth breaking the taboo.
It's a “truer reflection of self than a censored version," Jay told the Post. "Who gives a s--- whether she said half-a--ed?”
