Era o Ted Sorensen, conselheiro e "speechwriter" do Kennedy, que dizia que, mais do que as palavras, eram as ideias, os princípios e os valores que davam a grandiosidade a um discurso. E o recente discurso de Chris Christie, o candidato republicano mais vocal na oposição a Donald Trump nas primárias do seu partido, a anunciar a sua desafortunada desistência da corrida presidencial, parece seguir esse conselho à letra, tal é a substância premente que acarreta: a importância da defesa da democracia, a verdade e a coragem como armas de combate contra o medo e o ódio, a urgência no impedimento da vitória dos populistas autocentrados de tendências despóticas, e o enaltecimento da diferença - tão comummente manipulada para fins divisórios - como um alicerce a partir do qual se constrói uma grande nação. Não sei se é o seu Gettysburg Address, o seu "I have a dream", o seu "Ask not what your country can do for you", ou o seu "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself". Mas sei que é um belíssimo discurso a precisar de ser ouvido. E não só pelo eleitorado americano.

«I would rather lose by telling the truth than lie in order to win, and I feel no differently today, because this is a fight for the soul of our party and the soul of our country. (...) I want you to imagine for a second that Jefferson and Hamilton and Adams and Washington and Franklin were sitting here tonight. Do you think they could imagine that the country they risked their lives to create would actualy have a conversation about whether a convicted criminal should be president of the United States? I can't tell you how many people in New Hampshire have asked me, "Why there isn't a law against that?". The answer is because nobody ever thought that someone would have the audacity to run for president as a criminal. And they never thought that any American electorate would actually support it. (...) I remember what Benjamin Franklin said - I'm sure many of you do to - when he was walking down the street in Philadelphia after the constitutional convention, and a woman approached him and said, "Mister Franklin, what kind of government did you give us?". And he said to the woman, "A republic, if you can keep it." Benjamin Franklin’s words were never more relevant in America than they are right now.»