tenses - If you were listening..., you might wonder


This is part of Obama's commencement speech:



Which brings me to my third point: Facts, evidence, reason, logic, an understanding of science — these are good things. (Applause.) These are qualities you want in people making policy. These are qualities you want to continue to cultivate in yourselves as citizens. (Applause.) That might seem obvious. (Laughter.) That’s why we honor Bill Moyers or Dr. Burnell.


We traditionally have valued those things. But if you were listening to today’s political debate, you might wonder where this strain of anti-intellectualism came from.



In the last sentence, Obama was talking about Donald Trump and was basically saying that Donald Trump doesn't know what he's talking about.


Assuming that the conditional construction of the last sentence represents a hypothetical situation, why did Obama make it sound like a hypothetical situation to describe an apparently real situation?


Also, is this kind of expressing a real situation hypothetically common in English?




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