Bernie Sanders: The first twelve minutes of his speech have nothing to do with politics. Instead, he opens with a mini-lecture on the dialectic of history: suffrage, segregation, Jim Crow, gay marriage. Once he launches into the political portion of his remarks, the speech has a shape, with themes that flow from one into another: American corporate oligarchy, the hollowing out of the middle class, making state colleges free, universal healthcare, taxing the rich and corporations, overturning Citizens United, the differences between himself and Hillary Clinton. Unlike Clinton, whose stump speech is a trainwreck into a dumpster fire, Bernie has a well-crafted vehicle. And he delivers it like a combination of a beloved Marxist college professor and a zui quan master.

All of which is to say that it immediately clear why so many Democrats have signed up with Sanders. The Clinton campaign is offering eight years of trench warfare. Everything is about “fighting.” Sure, she’s promising to fight the “bad” half of America; those evil, nasty Republicans. But her entire pitch is like a recruiting poster for World War I: Vote for me and we’ll take this country back one hedgerow at a time, whatever the cost! It’s hard to get excited for the political equivalent of the Somme.