Manifest Destiny, 21st-century style

POTUS gave this year's commencement address at Calvin College, an institution of higher education with this mission statement (in every sense of the phrase):

Calvin College is a comprehensive liberal arts college in the Reformed tradition of historic Christianity. Through our learning, we seek to be agents of renewal in the academy, church, and society. We pledge fidelity to Jesus Christ, offering our hearts and lives to do God's work in God's world.

The speech itself is remarkably devoid of religious references. Instead, it frighteningly (yet, somehow, strategically and deviously) appropriates Tocqueville's Democracy in America as "an agenda for our time." And the self-deprecating introduction almost immediately ingratiates the speaker with the audience:

"Someday you will appreciate the grammar and verbal skills you learned here. And if any of you wonder how far a mastery of the English language can take you, just look what it did for me."

If I temporarily detach myself from my personal political beliefs, social values, and History degree, among other things, I can admit that the White House speechwriters are incredibly, undeniably brilliant. Their manipulation of metaphors and myths, coupled with symbolism of the speech's locale, is pure genius. They utterly understand the power of language, and have mastered the art of how to craft and convey their message.

And ... Time is suddenly a very heavy entity.