You’d think conservatives have enough on their hands in fighting to take back the White House, gaining more seats in Congress, and finding new and humiliating ways to defend former President Donald Trump. But Republicans always find time to attack their favorite targets, Barack and Michelle Obama.
Former President Obama faced unprecedented hatred, yet still served two full terms in the White House, and left office with high approval ratings. But he had to endure the racist calls of “birtherism” that plagued Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign (and later propelled Trump to GOP stardom) to likening Michelle Obama to a monkey, you name it and Republicans went there. But since leaving the White House, Obama has largely remained outside of the political spotlight, though his most passionate detractors still have it in for him and his wife.
Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News superstars turned social media firebrands, devoted their energies this week toward the former first couple in rather odd ways.
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This week on X (formerly known as Twitter), Carlson released an interview with convicted con artist Larry Sinclair, who claimed to have smoked crack and had a sexual relationship with Barack Obama in the late 1990s.
If this sounds like the recipe for a multi-layered conservative cake, that’s because it is. The bizarre interview has everything: a never-before-heard allegation (with zero corroboration) designed to stoke the rage of the homophobic right; images of the future first Black president using the drug that itself was used to demonize Black America for decades, and shocking accusations that would throw the Obamas’ entire history into dispute.
The other major washed-up ex-Fox News star, Megyn Kelly, claimed this week in an interview on the far-right cable network Newsmax, that Barack and Michelle Obama are really running the country as part of a “shadow puppet situation.” She also said the former first lady isn’t liked by conservatives because she doesn’t “like America.”
This isn’t a new refrain. Black people cannot bring attention to inequality, systemic racism, or America’s dark racial past (and present) without being accused of insufficient patriotism.
But the real reason conservatives hate Michelle is consistent polling popularity (she had a 72 percent approval rating, according to Pew Research, when Barack left office). Even though she’s insisted she isn’t going to run for public office, right-wing outlets remain captivated with fear and rage that she will.
It’s no wonder Republicans are threatened by Black women. At the polls Black women vote in the 90+ percentile for Democrats, their turnout rate has handed tight races to Democratic contenders, and their growing power in leadership positions is a threat to the white, male-dominated establishment. We’ve witnessed this in the backlash to Vice President Kamala Harris’ ascent, during the confirmation hearings for the first Black female Supreme Court Justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, as well as in the grossly misogynistic and racist attacks against former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.
But there is a special hatred reserved for the Obamas, particularly Michelle Obama.
Before beginning her career in big law and before meeting her future husband Barack Obama, Michelle Robinson was a staple of civic engagement in America’s third-largest city.
Unapologetically Black, born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, Michelle is a public school graduate from a working-class family who went to not one but two Ivy League institutions, Princeton and Harvard Law. She started her career in public service working across Chicago government, leading Public Allies, a nonprofit devoted to getting young people involved in social justice careers in both government and the private sector.
But none of this background matters to Kelly, who believes that because Michelle Obama said, “For the first time in my life I’m really proud of my country” when her husband was on the campaign trail, she doesn’t believe in the promise of America. Why can’t a patriotic American be more proud of her country at some times, rather than others?
Seeing the first Black man become president of the United States ignited a pride in minorities across America, particularly Black people whose ancestors had been locked out of opportunities and by our own Constitution, were regarded as three-fifths of a person, lacked voting rights, and the ability to own property. And for all the gains earned by the Civil Rights Movement, the struggle is far from over.
Kelly, seemingly flailing to find something else to be outraged over, also took issue with Michelle talking about her decision to straighten her hair as first lady because she was worried Americans “weren’t ready” for a Black woman’s natural hair in the White House. Kelly isn’t intellectually curious enough to know this—or empathetic enough to care—but Black natural hair is a political statement. We didn’t make it that way. White America did. If hair is seen as kinkier or worn in braids or afro, it was acknowledged as unkempt and unprofessional. Too Black.
The future doesn’t look bright for fading conservative media personalities like Carlson and Kelly, exiled from their former broadcast perches and now relegated to corners of the internet where the only time you hear about them is when they say something outrageous or stupid—or, in the case of their recent slams against the Obamas, both.
What remains of their audiences laps up the anti-Obama rage, a throwback to the days when Carlson and Kelly were big stars. And the hosts will continue to heap healthy portions of barely-concealed racist animus against the Obamas—as long as Americans continue to approve of the former first family more than the former Fox News stars.
