Anewly assertive tone has entered Barack Obama’s rhetoric since he gave a speech just before the Fourth of July holiday. John Boehner, speaker of the House of Representatives, has threatened to file a lawsuit against the US president for abuses of power. “So sue me,” Mr Obama said. Press reports highlighted his new fighting mood.

That may not have been what he intended. The speech was constructed around several high-flown paragraphs on the concept of “economic patriotism”. Mr Obama is fond of such tropes, which sound to the working-class ear like protectionism but imply no regulation that might startle free-traders. The president clearly hoped to shore up his credentials as one who cares about the median American.

Yet this side of his speech went unmentioned. When he tried to connect with ordinary citizens’ preoccupations, his language was flat. He said Americans should spend more on “the things that help workers get to the job, the things that help families get home to see their loved ones at night”. Even in a speech on infrastructure, this came off as unspecific and distant. He appealed to sports fans, rejoicing that the US soccer team was about to take to the “pitch” – a word Americans know only if they have traded in the City of London. American politicians occasionally drift out of intimacy with their voter base. But how do we explain it when a global symbol of democratic empowerment comes off sounding like Marie Antoinette?