Serious; Grave

In the case of the TD, Truman is the Morgan Freeman of presidents: stoic, reserved, and narrating a potentially life-threatening situation. Only in this case, the struggle is about human liberation and world peace—not the migratory hardships of emperor penguins.

Throughout the speech, Truman uses words like "gravity" (1) and "immediate" (34; 81; 88) to express his level of concern for the growing communist threat. There are zero jokes or examples of light-heartedness to contrast with a number of harder, more concrete phrases like "militant minority" (14) and "if we falter" (107). Yikes.

The possibility of not living up to why we fought "the war in Germany and Japan" is also a powerful reminder of an emotional time in the listener's history, and a warning sign sure to stop him in his tracks (60).

And all of this is to get Congress to understand the Soviet threat…and what might happen if they don't do something about it.