Former first lady Michelle Obama received an exuberant welcome from the Democratic National Convention crowd on Tuesday, where she not only confirmed to her fellow Democrats that “hope is making a comeback,” but unleashed sharp criticisms of Donald Trump on a number of issues, including his use of “ugly, misogynistic, racist lies as a substitute for real ideas.”
“Something wonderfully magical is in the air, isn’t it?” Obama began, nearly a month after President Joe Biden threw his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris to succeed him, in effect altering the landscape of the presidential race in Democrats’ favor.
“We’re feeling it in this arena, but it’s spreading all across this country we love—a familiar feeling that’s been buried too deep for far too long. You know what I’m talking about. It’s the contagious power of hope,” she declared, that final word being the mantra of her husband’s 2008 campaign.
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In the effort to “vanquish the demons of division, fear and hate,” Obama continued, “hope is making a comeback.”
Harris “understands that most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward,” Obama then said, beginning a series of clear allusions to Trump.
“We will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth,” she continued. “If we bankrupt a business or choke in a crisis, we don’t get a second, third, or fourth chance. If things don’t go our way, we don’t have the luxury of whining or cheating others to get further ahead. No, we don’t get to change the rules so we always win. If we see a mountain in front of us, we don’t expect there to be an escalator waiting there to take us to the top.”
Moments later, when mentioning her family’s experience enduring Trump’s attacks, Obama called him out by name.
“For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to try to make people fear us. His limited, narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hard-working, highly educated, successful people who happen to be Black,” she said to sustained cheers and applause.
Former US First Lady Michelle Obama speaks on the second day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, on August 20, 2024.
Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty ImagesFrom there, Obama made a jab at Trump’s recent mention of “Black jobs”—a remark that many Democrats took issue with, given the odd implication of racially-specific occupations.
“Now I want to know,” Obama asked the pumped up crowd. “Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might be one of those ‘Black jobs’?”
Trump, whose presidential candidacy in 2016 was fueled in part by birtherism toward the then-president, and who recently echoed that by questioning Harris’s race, is “doubling down on ugly, misogynistic, racist lies as a substitute for real ideas and solutions that will actually make people’s lives better,” Obama continued.
“Because cutting our health care, taking away our freedom to control our bodies, taking away the freedom to become a mother through IVF like I did—those things are not going to improve health outcomes of our wives, mothers and daughters,” she said, alluding to the fallout from the repeal of Roe v. Wade by the conservative-majority Supreme Court.
“Shutting down the Department of Education, banning our books—none of that will prepare our kids for the future,” Obama stressed. “Demonizing our children for being who they are and loving who they love—look, that does not make anybody’s life better. Instead, it only makes us small.”
