1. Obama’s speech yesterday was almost unbearably boring. It is tough to imagine anybody keeping focused on the whole speech who wasn’t being paid to do so. But boring doesn’t mean ineffective. Pete Hegseth got it about right. The purpose of last night’s speech was to make Obama seem like a moderate reasonable guy proposing reasonable, common sense policies. For these purposes, the general impression is more important than any particular moment. Obama can bring a certain kind of boring that is reassuring to the nonideological listener.
Yes. Can’t cut . . . our way . . . to prosperity. Sleepy now.
2. My totally unscientific survey result (not really a survey) is that Obama’s minimum wage proposal made the biggest impact yesterday. The minimum wage isn’t a top voting issue for most people, but that isn’t the point. People know Obama is for something they are for (rightly or wrongly.) It is a connection to (some of) their lives. Republicans need policies that make real world connections based on better policies.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Letters
Joshua T. Katz’s (“Pure Episcopalianism,” May 2025) reason for a theologically conservative person joining a theologically liberal…
The Revival of Patristics
On May 25, 1990, the renowned patristics scholar Charles Kannengiesser, S.J., delivered a lecture at the annual…
The Enduring Legacy of the Spanish Mystics
Last autumn, I spent a few days at my family’s coastal country house in northwestern Spain. The…
