Former first lady Michelle Obama speaks during the second day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on August 20, 2024, in Chicago, Illinois. | Source: Chip Somodevilla / Getty
Former First Lady Michelle Obama delivered a fiery call to action at the DNC on Tuesday night while simultaneously drawing a stark contrast between the Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in a speech powered in part by the spirit of her late mother.
Noting that the last time she was in her hometown was for her mother’s funeral in May, Obama drew a parallel between her mother and Harris’ mother and their own upbringings and what provided the foundation of values that propelled them each to success. And she just may have been talking about Donald Trump, too.
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.@MichelleObama: “Something wonderfully magical is in the air…it’s spreading all across this country…a familiar feeling that’s been buried too deep for far too long…It’s the contagious power of hope…America, hope is making a comeback!” #DNC pic.twitter.com/9eve3v5KuN
— CSPAN (@cspan) August 21, 2024
It is “the contagious power of hope” that she and Harris’ mothers taught them that informs their desire to “vanquish the demon of hate,” Obama said before claiming triumphantly that “hope is making a comeback.”
Calling Harris “my girl,” Obama reminded the audience that the Democratic nominee “is more than ready for this moment. She is one of the most qualified people to ever seek the office of the presidency. And she is one of the most dignified — a tribute to her mother, my mother and to your mother, too.”
Source: Andrew Harnik / Getty
But then, Obama quickly pivoted to Trump and his xenophobic and racist rhetoric fearmongering about anyone who isn’t white.
“No one has a monopoly on what it means to be an American,” Obama remarked. “No one.”
Harris, on the other hand, “understands that most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward,” Obama said in an off-handed reference to Trump’s life of privilege.
Obama said Harris understands people who “will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth,” noting that average people who “bankrupt a business or choke in a crisis … don’t get a second, third or fourth chance.”
Michelle Obama: “Don’t just sit around and complain. Do something! … Michelle Obama is asking you — no, I’m telling y’all — to do something.”
The DNC crowd then chants, “Do something!” pic.twitter.com/p8JR4nQKk7
— The Recount (@therecount) August 21, 2024
That was clearly a reference to not only Trump’s checkered business record but also his intrinsic white privilege and his mishandling of the pandemic.
“We don’t have the luxury of whining or cheating others,” Obama said. “If we see a mountain in the way, we don’t expect an escalator to take us to the top.”
Warning that Trump’s hateful and racist rhetoric was bound to be turned up now that he’s losing in the polls to Harris — after all, Obama said, she and her husband “know something about this” — Obama asked rhetorically: “I want to know – who’s gonna tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs‘?”
Michelle Obama, mic drop moment. #MichelleObama #DNC2024 #DNC #blackjobs pic.twitter.com/JZGvxQxf1n
— AC (@ACinPhilly) August 21, 2024
Obama concluded her speech by imploring all Americans: “Don’t just sit around and complain, do something!”
That led to a “Do something!” call and response with the audience before Obama introduced her husband, former President Barack Obama, who joked that he was “the only person stupid enough to speak after Michelle Obama.”
Source: San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images / Getty
The Obamas and Kamala Harris
The Obamas have known Harris for at least 20 years and were among the first to formally endorse her for president after Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
After all, if anybody can relate to Harris’ historic candidacy for the White House, they can, what with Barack Obama being the first Black president of the United States and Michelle Obama being the first Black first lady.
“Michelle and I called our friend,” Barack Obama wrote late last month on X, formerly Twitter, when announcing his endorsement of her candidacy. “We told her we think she’ll make a fantastic president of the United States, and that she has our full support. At this critical moment for our country, we’re going to do everything we can to make sure she wins in November.”
In a roughly one-minute video endorsement attached to the social media post, Barack Obama says, “Michelle and I couldn’t be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office.”
Michelle Obama added: “I can’t have this phone call without saying to my girl Kamala: I am proud of you. This is going to be historic.”
Later, in a post on Medium, the former first couple shared some additional thoughts about Harris that should make it clear how they really feel about her not only as a person and a friend but also — and especially — as a presidential candidate.
“Kamala has more than a resume. She has the vision, the character, and the strength that this critical moment demands,” the former first couple wrote. “There is no doubt in our mind that Kamala Harris has exactly what it takes to win this election and deliver for the American people. At a time when the stakes have never been higher, she gives us all reason to hope.”
The likelihood of Harris emerging victorious in November has been growing recently if polling is any indication.
The latest national poll, conducted by Morning Consult, gave Harris an edge of four percentage points over Trump, widening her lead ever so slightly in the same poll conducted one week earlier.
Notably, ever since Biden dropped out and Harris became the Democratic nominee, she has not trailed in a single national poll.
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