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Here's another bit of conventional wisdom Zohran completely blew away: His speech was at well above a 10th-grade level. It was complex, erudite, punctuated by deep and fluent references. You don't have to condescend to voters with baby talk! Part of re-establishing norms is speaking like an adult.

More broadly, I would also say that, both rhetorically and in cadence, he has many other traditions to tap into, so he doesn't need to appropriate AAVE speech-making in order to sound passionate or move people. (Interestingly, this was also true in his raps being specific to Ugandan culture.)

In terms of _content_, as we see with nods to Debs and Nehru, he's deeply comfortable with socialism. This makes sense not just because of his father's work, but also the cultural heritage on his mom's side; the region of India our families are from has always been a hotbed of leftist activism.

And starting off by recalling and quoting Eugene Debs was emblematic of not just his erudition but of a fierce fearlessness in his convictions.