“There’s something wonderfully magical going on in the air, isn’t there?” Michelle Obama said at the beginning of her speech Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention.
It was the resurgence of energy in 2008 that spurred her husband on. Mr. Barack to the presidency—a surge that Democrats have sought and failed to recapture in the decade since the Obamas left the White House. “Hope is back,” Michelle declared.
And for more than an hour as she and Barack spoke to crowds in their hometown of Chicago, “Yes we can” is also back. As well as “Don’t boo, vote.” The Obamas pleaded with Democrats to get out and vote, to believe once again in the power of community and the spirit of self-reliance that underpins the American experiment. It was all a return to a time and place long before that. Donald Trump down the gilded escalator and used force and threats to enter the White House.
Their speeches, however, were not all 2008-era hope and change. The Obamas took turns criticizing Trump, while Michelle criticized him. love to complain And racist words and Barack might be doing a joke about penis size while mocking Trump’s “weird obsession” with crowd size.
Michelle devoted most of her speech to selling. Kamala Harris as a hard-working person who deserves the top job. She is “one of the most qualified people ever to run for the presidency,” the former first lady said, “and she is one of the most dignified.” But Obama set the stage ablaze when she focused on Trump, mentioning him by name only once but accurately criticizing his many business failures, his wealthy parenting and his racist attacks on her and her family. “For years, Donald Trump has done everything in his power to try to make people afraid of us,” she said. “His narrow, insular view of the world makes him feel threatened by the existence of two hard-working, highly educated, successful people who happen to be black.” And then, to rapturous applause, she delivered another blow: “I want to know, who is going to tell him that the job he is now seeking could be one of the ‘most important jobs in the world’?”Black jobs‘?”
As Barack took the stage to a roar of “Yes, we can”—two full decades after his fateful 2004 DNC debut in Boston, a speech that catapulted him into the national spotlight—he declared himself “ready to go, even if I’m the only one stupid enough to speak after Michelle Obama.” The former president portrayed Trump as a 78-year-old billionaire standing outside America’s window with a leaf blower. “We don’t need four more years of bluster, bumbling, and chaos,” he said. “We’ve seen that movie before, and we all know that the sequels are usually worse.”
Obama certainly had plenty of praise for the President. Joe Bidenreflecting on their eight years together in the White House and their unwavering friendship. “History will remember Joe Biden as a remarkable president who defended democracy in a time of great peril,” he said. “And I am proud to call him my president. But I am even prouder to call him my friend.”
Biden was noticeably absent from the United Center as Obama touted his decision to forgo his 2024 ticket—a move Obama is believed to have had a hand in carrying out“Now, the torch has been passed,” Obama asserted before moving on to a “new chapter,” which he identified as President Kamala Harris.
