WEBVTT

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OK, I want you to try and transport yourself

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back in time with me. It's March 18th, 2008.

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We're in this era, you know, just before smartphones

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were everywhere. People are still clutching their

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Blackberries. Right. No Instagram, no TikTok.

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Yeah. That's still, what, a decade away? Over

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a decade. And the Democratic primary. It's not

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just a political race. It's this heavyweight

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boxing match. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama.

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And it has been going on for rounds and rounds.

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I mean, it was an absolute gridlock. No knockout.

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And every single delegate mattered. The energy

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was just incredibly high. You had two historic

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candidates. But then right in the middle of this

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stalemate. The floor just drops out from under

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the Obama campaign. Floor drops out. I think

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that's putting it mildly. This was the moment

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it looked like the wheels were really coming

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off the bus. Yeah. We are talking, of course,

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about the Jeremiah Wright controversy. And today

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we're looking at the response to that crisis.

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A speech called A More Perfect Union. And this

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isn't just about, you know, reviewing a piece

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of oratory. This is really about analyzing a

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high wire act. We're looking at how a candidate.

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who had built his entire campaign on being a

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unifier, suddenly had to talk about the most

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divisive topic in American history. Race. Race.

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All to save his political life. The stakes were

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just wildly high. And to really get why this

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speech mattered, we have to understand the specific

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kind of panic that was happening in March 2008.

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Obama's whole brand is hope. He's the no red

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states, no blue states guy. And then all of a

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sudden, everyone's TV is just filled with his

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pastor. The pastor for 20 years. Shouting some

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pretty incendiary things. And that's the key

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context. Yeah. It wasn't just that he had a,

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quote, radical friend. It was that the clips

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that surfaced completely contradicted the brand

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Obama was selling. Yes, exactly. If you're the

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uniter and your spiritual mentor is shouting

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goddamn America from the pulpit. You start to

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look like a fraud. I remember those clips just

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looping on cable news. It was inescapable. ABC

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News was broadcasting excerpts where Wright isn't

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just criticizing policy. No, it's way beyond

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that. He's saying the U .S. government invented

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HIV as a tool of genocide. He's blaming the U

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.S. for, quote, killing innocent people. And

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the soundbite that really, really stuck, the

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one that played on every single 24 -hour news

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cycle, was him flipping God Bless America. To

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goddamn America. Yeah, citing the Bible and blaming

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the country for its treatment of citizens based

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on their color. Politically, I mean, this is

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a nightmare scenario. So Obama had to distance

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himself. Right away. Right. He kicked right off

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his African -American religious leadership committee.

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He did. He issued all the standard political

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statements. I condemn these remarks. This isn't

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who I am. That sort of thing. But the standard

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playbook just wasn't working. No, the bleeding

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didn't stop. Because the question wasn't just

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about the remarks anymore. It became, Barack,

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you're a smart guy. You sat in those pews for

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20 years. You baptized your kids there. Did you

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not hear this? And if you did, why on earth did

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you stay? Exactly. It attacked his judgment,

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his authenticity. He was being painted as this

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secret radical who was just playing a moderate

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on TV. And the campaign is in full on panic mode.

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They realize a press release is not going to

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fix this. They need a reset, a hard reset. And

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this is where we get into the weeds of the writing

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process, which I just find fascinating. Me too.

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This wasn't some speech that was focus group

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for months. This was like a term paper do it

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Don situation. It really was. He starts dictating

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a draft. To his speechwriter, Jon Favreau, on

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a Saturday night, he works all through Sunday.

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I mean, this is a candidate in the middle of

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a grueling primary. Who's staying up until 3

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in the morning? 3 a .m. on a Sunday night, refining

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the arguments himself. 3 a .m. I can barely write

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a coherent email at 3 a .m., let alone a speech

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that's supposed to, you know, define race relations

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for the 21st century. And he was still editing

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it Tuesday morning, right before he walked out.

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He sends the final draft to David Axelrod, his

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chief strategist. And Axelrod's response is just

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legendary in political circles now. It is. He

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reads it and just emails back. This is why you

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should be president. Which is such a bold thing

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to say when your candidate is about to go talk

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about the original sin of America. So he chooses

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Philadelphia, the National Constitution Center.

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He's not doing this at some rally with cheering

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fans. No, the setting is very somber. It's academic.

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He walks out. flags behind him, and he doesn't

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start with a soundbite. He starts with the Constitution.

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We the people in order to form a more perfect

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union. He's grounding the crisis in the bedrock

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of the country, but he also grounds it in his

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own story immediately. He doesn't run from his,

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quote, exotic background. No, he leans right

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into it. He has to. He reminds everyone he's

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the son of a black man from Kenya and a white

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woman from Kansas. And he says that great line,

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in no other country on earth is my story even

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possible. Right. He's positioning himself as

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the physical embodiment of the American experiment

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itself. But then he has to pivot. He can't just

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talk about the Constitution forever. He has to

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talk about the guy shouting on everyone's TV

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screen. And this is the strategic pivot. The

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conventional wisdom here is you throw the guy

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under the bus. Oh, absolutely. Say he's crazy.

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Say you barely knew him and move on. Cut the

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anchor. That's politics 101. Isolate the threat.

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Yep. But Obama does something much, much riskier.

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He condemns the remarks. He calls them incendiary

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and a distorted view of the country. But then

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he says, I can no more disown him than I can

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disown the black community. And this is the part

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that I think really just stopped people in their

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tracks. He creates this parallel. He compares

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Jeremiah Wright to his own white grandmother.

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This is the moment of rhetorical brilliance and

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extreme risk. He brings up Madeleine Dunham.

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The woman who raised him. The woman who sacrificed

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everything for him. And he admits on national

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television that this woman he loved once confessed

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she was scared of black men passing her on the

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street. He admitted she used racial stereotypes

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that made him cringe. Yeah. So think about what

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he's asking the listener to do. He's saying,

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look, I have a white grandmother who has prejudices,

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but I love her. I have a black pastor who has

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this anger, but I love him. They are both messy,

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imperfect parts of my life. And they are both

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parts of America. It just completely neutralizes

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the monster narrative. Right. By comparing right

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to his grandmother, he's basically saying we

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all have family members who say things at Thanksgiving

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that make us uncomfortable, but we don't kick

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them out of the family. Precisely. It forced

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white voters specifically to think about their

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own families rather than just judging Obama's.

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It shifted the whole lens from is Obama a radical

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to something more like how do we deal with the

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complexities of the people we love? But he didn't

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stop at just. People are complex. He actually

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tries to explain why Wright was so angry. This

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is where he kind of puts on the professor hat.

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He does. He contextualizes the anger. He argues

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that you can't understand Jeremiah Wright without

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understanding the Jim Crow South. He talked about

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the bitterness and bias of a generation that

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suffered real legal humiliation. He made the

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point that for that generation, the anger isn't

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just made up. It's a scar. Yes. He paraphrased

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Faulkner. The past isn't dead and buried. In

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fact, it isn't even past. He was telling white

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America, look, what you hear in those sound bites,

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that's the overflow of pain that usually stays

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in the barbershop or at the kitchen table. You're

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just seeing it spill out. So he validates the

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black experience. But then, and I think this

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is the part that maybe won him the election,

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he pivots to white resentment and he doesn't

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scold them. This is the section that always gets

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overlooked. But it is the intellectual core of

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the speech. He acknowledges that working class

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white Americans are angry, too. Right. And instead

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of just dismissing that anger as simple racism

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or prejudice. Yeah. He validates the economic

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roots of it. He brings up busing. He brings up

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affirmative action. He says, essentially. I get

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it. He says that when white workers hear about

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affirmative action, they don't see historical

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correction. They see their own hard work being

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devalued. They see a zero sum game where they

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feel like they're losing ground. That is a massive

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departure for a Democrat in 2008. I mean, usually

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the line is check your privilege. But Obama is

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saying, no, your anxiety is real. Your economic

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fear is legitimate. He called it a racial stalemate.

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He argued that for years politicians have exploited

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these divisions. He said we treat race as a spectacle.

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We obsess over the O .J. Simpson trial or Katrina.

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But we ignore the underlying structural rot.

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Exactly. The rot that hurts both the black factory

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worker and the white steel worker. So he's trying

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to bind their fates together. He's saying. You

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guys are fighting each other over crumbs while

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corporate interests run away with the pie. That's

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it. He's trying to create a class -based coalition

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that transcends race. He's telling the white

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voter, you have more in common with the black

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man in the pew at Trinity United than you do

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with the CEO closing your plant. So that's the

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argument. But let's talk about the reception.

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Because in 2008, the media landscape was changing.

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This speech wasn't just on CNN. It went on YouTube.

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And we have to remember what YouTube was in 2008.

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It wasn't what it is now. Watching a 37 minute

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video on a desktop computer was a commitment.

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And yet it got 1 .2 million views in 24 hours.

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Which for the time is basically a Super Bowl

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audience for a political speech. It's insane.

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It signaled a huge shift. People were bypassing

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the cable news sound bites. They wanted the full

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context. It allowed Obama to, you know, speak

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to the electorate like adults. So his supporters

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obviously loved it. Historic. But I want to look

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at the critics because this was not a universal

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slam dunk. Not at all. There was a very wide

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spectrum of reaction on the support side. Sure,

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you had people like Bill Richardson, the New

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Mexico governor, who said the speech actually

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clinched his endorsement. OK. But you also had

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some shocking defenses from the right. Mike Huckabee.

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I was reading about this and I did a complete

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double take. Yeah. Mike Huckabee, a Republican

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candidate, went on Morning Joe and defended Obama.

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Wow. As a former pastor himself, Huckabee said,

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look. Sermons are emotional. They're not scripted.

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We need to cut people some slack who grew up

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under Jim Crow. He basically told his own party

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to back off. That is a level of nuance we don't

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see much of these days. To put it mildly. But

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then you had the real skeptics. Ed Koch, the

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former NYC mayor, he wasn't buying it. He hated

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the grandmother comparison. He felt it was a

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deflection. And Charles Krauthammer, the conservative

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columnist, he really went for the throat. Krauthammer

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was brutal. He called the speech a brilliant

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fraud. He thought it was an intellectual magic

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trick. A magic trick. Yeah. His argument was

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Obama gave us this whole history lesson on Jim

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Crow to explain right, but he never answered

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the personal question. Why did you, Barack Obama,

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a man of the future, stay in a church stuck in

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the past? Krauthammer called it a sophistic justification.

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So you have one side calling it a master class

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and the other calling it a brilliant fraud. But

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in the end, the voters clearly broke toward Obama.

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The polling showed it worked. A CBS poll found

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69 % of voters thought he did a good job addressing

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the issue. It didn't make the right controversy

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disappear, of course. No, the Republicans used

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it all the way to November. They did. But it

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stopped the panic. It neutralized that Manchurian

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candidate. Fear for enough independence to keep

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the campaign alive. I want to end on the story

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he used to close the speech, because for all

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the talk of the Constitution and Jim Crow, he

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ends with this really small, intimate story.

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The story of Ashley Baia. This is the emotional

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hook. Yeah. He couldn't end on policy. He had

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to end on feeling. Ashley Baia was a young white

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campaign organizer in South Carolina. Right.

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She's organizing a community meeting, and she

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shared her story that her mom had struggled with

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cancer and bankruptcy, and she wanted to fix

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the system. And at the same meeting, there's

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an elderly black volunteer. Right. An older black

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man who sees Ashley, this young white woman,

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trying to hold together. He tells everyone in

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the room to listen to her. And the quote Obama

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uses is that this man says, I am here because

00:12:12.539 --> 00:12:14.840
of Ashley. It's the goosebumps moment. You have

00:12:14.840 --> 00:12:17.539
the young white organizer and the old black volunteer

00:12:17.539 --> 00:12:20.240
realizing their struggles, health care, poverty,

00:12:20.559 --> 00:12:22.960
insecurity are actually the same struggle. And

00:12:22.960 --> 00:12:26.750
Obama describes the scene. Ashley handing out

00:12:26.750 --> 00:12:29.649
mustard and relish sandwiches. It just grounds

00:12:29.649 --> 00:12:32.750
these high ideals of the Constitution in the

00:12:32.750 --> 00:12:34.990
reality of a community center in South Carolina.

00:12:35.169 --> 00:12:37.929
It was his way of saying this union becomes more

00:12:37.929 --> 00:12:40.470
perfect, not in the halls of Congress, but right

00:12:40.470 --> 00:12:43.210
here between these two people. It's a powerful

00:12:43.210 --> 00:12:46.129
narrative. It is. But looking back on it now,

00:12:46.350 --> 00:12:48.850
it does raise a question. The speech was titled

00:12:48.850 --> 00:12:52.149
A More Perfect Union. Do we feel like the speech

00:12:52.149 --> 00:12:54.769
actually moved the needle on race or was it just

00:12:54.769 --> 00:12:57.129
a brilliant survival tactic? That is the enduring

00:12:57.129 --> 00:12:59.669
debate, isn't it? Academics compared to JFK's

00:12:59.669 --> 00:13:02.370
speech on religion or Lincoln at Cooper Union.

00:13:02.529 --> 00:13:04.669
These moments where a candidate turns a liability

00:13:04.669 --> 00:13:07.169
into an asset. The New Yorker argued that this

00:13:07.169 --> 00:13:09.190
speech is the reason he became president. But

00:13:09.190 --> 00:13:11.809
there's a but. But critics would argue that while

00:13:11.809 --> 00:13:14.529
it got him elected, the racial stalemate he described

00:13:14.529 --> 00:13:17.049
didn't break. In fact, you could argue the backlash

00:13:17.049 --> 00:13:19.850
to his presidency proved just how deep that stalemate

00:13:19.850 --> 00:13:22.590
really was. So was it a moment of genuine teaching

00:13:22.590 --> 00:13:24.950
or was it just the most effective political magic

00:13:24.950 --> 00:13:27.570
trick of the modern era? You know, it's possible

00:13:27.570 --> 00:13:30.649
that in the landscape of American politics to

00:13:30.649 --> 00:13:34.269
survive, it had to be both. He had to teach us

00:13:34.269 --> 00:13:36.860
just enough to get us to vote for him. But maybe

00:13:36.860 --> 00:13:39.379
one speech couldn't fix the underlying crack

00:13:39.379 --> 00:13:41.279
in the foundation. It's a speech that really

00:13:41.279 --> 00:13:44.399
demands a reread, especially now. The rhetoric

00:13:44.399 --> 00:13:47.299
holds up even if that, you know, post -racial

00:13:47.299 --> 00:13:49.679
optimism feels a little distant. Absolutely.

00:13:49.740 --> 00:13:52.759
It's a document of a very specific moment where

00:13:52.759 --> 00:13:55.940
we dared to hope that talking like adults might

00:13:55.940 --> 00:13:58.200
actually solve the problem. If you haven't read

00:13:58.200 --> 00:14:00.580
the full text or watched that 37 -minute video,

00:14:00.700 --> 00:14:03.120
it is really worth your time, especially that

00:14:03.120 --> 00:14:05.639
Ashley Baez story at the end. it lands it really

00:14:05.639 --> 00:14:07.539
does thanks for joining us on this deep dive

00:14:07.539 --> 00:14:08.360
we'll see you next time