THE YOUTUBE CANDIDATE
The editor began their conversation with, “Well, here’s the thing, Mr. Anderson, that video or parts of it, has now been posted on dozens, maybe hundreds of YouTube channels, and on half the blogs and social media platforms in the western world. I am personally a little weary of hearing that some latest notion has ‘gone viral,’ but your remarks most assuredly have. The Twitter – or X – feeds, or whatever this week’s name is – have exploded. So have posts on other social media whose names I have trouble keeping track of. I don’t know if statistics are kept on this sort of thing, but if they are, you now own the record.”
The story that followed in the day’s newspaper did a nice job of recapping the video and their cup of coffee conversation at what was apparently now becoming a rather famous, or infamous, kitchen table. Matt’s video speech began with a small homily about the country and its origins – about how from its beginnings as a nation it had freed itself from the past, rid itself of the coils that bound other nations to classes, traditions, and institutions; removed the impediments that limited opportunities, and narrowed peoples’ visions of the future. This was, he had said, the first place on earth where an individual – a person – meant more than a government, or a king, or some group that controlled a country. True freedom had begun here and would thrive, and continue to spread across the globe if we stayed faithful to the dream that had made us a nation. It was a dream that could take people where their own visions and talents, and hard work would lead them. It was a dream that allowed people to be what they wished to be.
“That’s the part of the speech that has received the heaviest coverage on news broadcasts and on social media,” the editor noted. Matt had transitioned from it to ideas on how to support and sustain the dream, and to restore it where it seemed to have gotten off track. He acknowledged that there were many areas where we could – must – do better, but the history of our nation was that we confronted those issues and worked openly to resolve them. His thoughts varied markedly from the views of the real president, the incumbent who was now in the midst of a mudslinging, ‘attack ad campaign,’ that was in a virtual tie with less than five months until the election.
The story that followed in the day’s newspaper did a nice job of recapping the video and their cup of coffee conversation at what was apparently now becoming a rather famous, or infamous, kitchen table. Matt’s video speech began with a small homily about the country and its origins – about how from its beginnings as a nation it had freed itself from the past, rid itself of the coils that bound other nations to classes, traditions, and institutions; removed the impediments that limited opportunities, and narrowed peoples’ visions of the future. This was, he had said, the first place on earth where an individual – a person – meant more than a government, or a king, or some group that controlled a country. True freedom had begun here and would thrive, and continue to spread across the globe if we stayed faithful to the dream that had made us a nation. It was a dream that could take people where their own visions and talents, and hard work would lead them. It was a dream that allowed people to be what they wished to be.
“That’s the part of the speech that has received the heaviest coverage on news broadcasts and on social media,” the editor noted. Matt had transitioned from it to ideas on how to support and sustain the dream, and to restore it where it seemed to have gotten off track. He acknowledged that there were many areas where we could – must – do better, but the history of our nation was that we confronted those issues and worked openly to resolve them. His thoughts varied markedly from the views of the real president, the incumbent who was now in the midst of a mudslinging, ‘attack ad campaign,’ that was in a virtual tie with less than five months until the election.