Ben Rhodes
π€ SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Is speech writing a lost art?
Do you think it's dead soon?
The last three are Reagan.
Obama-Trump, right?
And that was just, that little snapshot alone was fascinating because, like I, you know, spoiler alert, but the Obama speech is a race speech.
It's impossible to imagine a politician delivering that speech today.
Like a 45-minute speech
like brilliant meditation on multiracial democracy.
It was covered in depth too.
Yeah, that people watched the whole speech, people read it, engaged.
And actually that's part of the problem is like, we don't listen to each other.
We don't make long arguments, you know?
So the TikTok version.
What I like to think, there needs to be some space for progressive patriotism here, not because we don't see clearly the bad parts of the story.
And I have actually a native chief, Seneca chief, gave this extraordinary speech in the early 19th century that basically sounded like it was delivered at a Black Lives Matter protest.
But this is the only country we have.
And if we don't win the argument, then it's going to be the worst version of itself.
Whereas if it's the better version of itself, it can do a lot of good for people.
Everyone could brush up a little bit.