There was a time when an American accent carried weight. Think of Carl Sagan – calm, precise, almost poetic – explaining the cosmos as if he had eternity to do it. You trusted him the way you trusted Patrick Moore or Jacob Bronowski. When he spoke of billions and billions of stars, you believed him. It wasn’t hype, it was science.
Pair that with Professor Heinz Wolff, who could make you believe in the engineering potential of rubber bands and washing-up bottles. His German inflection gave everything an authority no snake-oil salesman could fake. You could almost hear Einstein nodding along. When Wolff raised an eyebrow and said, “Zis vill not vork,” you knew it wouldn’t.
Even then, we all knew American advertising was a byword for scam. The solemn voiceover would announce a “miracle cure,” usually backed by a smiling man in a white coat with the letters M.D. tacked after his name. The “doctor” was always suspect, the product always miraculous, and the whole performance as trustworthy as a used-car dealer with a megaphone. But science was separate. When you heard Sagan or a NASA engineer, you didn’t hear Madison Avenue – you heard rigour, discovery, credibility.
Somewhere along the way, though, the American accent got hijacked. Instead of the gentle cadence of Sagan, we got the holler of Trump – bellowing about “clean coal,” brandishing Sharpie-altered weather maps, and treating hurricanes like a personal vendetta. Instead of calm rigour, we got televangelists promising salvation in return for credit card details. The voice that once promised Apollo now shouts apocalypse.
Picture, if you will, Heinz Wolff moderating a Trump rally. Clipboard in hand, hair like an electrified mop, he listens as Trump claims he’ll nuke a hurricane. Wolff sighs, produces an egg, and says in that deadpan German accent: “Vell, perhaps first you can balance zis on a spoon. If zat fails, maybe leave the nukes alone, ja?” The crowd roars, mistaking it for patriotism. Wolff scribbles “lunacy” in his notes and mutters, “Zis vould never pass peer review, except perhaps in Alabama.”
That’s the tragedy. The accent that once stood for science, progress, and discovery now too often signals bluster, hype, and grievance. Germany kept its quiet dignity. Britain still produces eccentrics you can trust with an egg timer. America? It drowned out Sagan’s reasoned tones with the carnival bark of Trump – and the echo of all those miracle cures “approved” by a suspect doctor in a shiny advert.
And you can’t help thinking that if Heinz Wolff were still here, he’d shake his head, adjust his spectacles, and say: “Zis is not science. Zis is madness.” And for once, everyone would believe him.
And as for RFK Jr. .........
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