In Budapest this week, America’s ambassador to Hungary gave one of the most trenchant expressions of values-based foreign policy — and takedowns of a supposed U.S. ally, who shares none of them — that I have heard from a diplomat.

It was refreshing, even inspiring, precisely because it was so undiplomatically blunt. But in the context of November’s U.S. election, this thunderbolt from a superpower felt out of step with the time and frankly harmless.