I don't get excited over politicians as orators; they're usually overrated anyway. (Remember when Ronald Reagan was promoted as "the Great Communicator"?) I usually prefer to read transcripts so I can concentrate on the content instead of the packaging. It's how I got through the Obama years. When I did listen to him, I was put off by his scolding tone, his fake folksiness, etc.; his dishonesty was just the icing on the cake. I never agreed that he was a good speaker. (Yeah, Dubya was worse - that's supposed to be a recommendation?)
But I was impressed by this short video from Zohran Mamdani. I watched it all the way through without wanting to bang my head on the table. For one thing, he doesn't talk down, doesn't hide that he's bright, but without being professorial. The content is good too, which is why it infuriated so many of the usual suspects. Which doesn't mean I'm uncritical of him; I reserve the right to be as harsh about him as I am about Obama, Trump, Dubya, Clinton, Harris, and the rest. This clip is just refreshing, that's all.
You don't have to agree with me, either: whether a pol is a good speaker is a subjective aesthetic judgment, which takes me back to my original point: that it's unimportant compared to the pol's words and actions, which loyalists prefer to downplay if not ignore. In Mamdani's case, it's often difficult to sort out reality from the flood of hydrophobic propaganda directed against him, but as far as I can tell, he's doing pretty well. Compared to his centrist-Dem attackers, he's wonderful.
