Michelle Obama brought a breath of life to the Democratic National Convention Monday after nearly two hours of brief, bleak speeches and videos, taking aim at President Trump as she urged Americans to vote.
“If you think things cannot possibly get worse, trust me, they can — and they will if we don’t make a change in this election,” the former First Lady said in a pre-recorded video address.
“If we have any hope of ending this chaos, we have to vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it.”
Wearing a gold “V-O-T-E” necklace, Obama said the country had been “living with the consequences” of the 2016 election after “too many people chose to believe that their votes didn’t matter.”
Four years after her husband, Barack Obama, left office, she said ” the state of this nation is very different.”
“Whenever we look to this White House for some leadership or consolation or any semblance of steadiness, what we get instead is chaos, division, and a total and utter lack of empathy,” Obama said.
She spoke of young people, including her two daughters, witnessing the coronavirus pandemic and “people shouting in grocery stores, unwilling to wear a mask to keep us all safe.”
She mentioned leaders “emboldening torch-bearing white supremacists,” a country where “children are torn from their families and thrown into cage” and “pepper spray and rubber bullets are used on peaceful protestors for a photo-op.”
“Sadly, this is the America that is on display for the next generation,” she said. “That’s not just disappointing; it’s downright infuriating.”
Striking a rising note, Obama redefined her infamous “when they go low, we go high” phrase from the 2016 convention, saying, “Going high means taking the harder path.”
“Going high means standing fierce against hatred,” she said. “And going high means unlocking the shackles of lies and mistrust with the only thing that can truly set us free: the cold hard truth.”
“So let me be as honest and clear as I possibly can,” Obama said, “Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country.”
“He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is.”
Obama noted that she understood her message wouldn’t be heard by some people as “we live in a nation that is deeply divided.”
However, she said, “you know I hate politics, but you also know how much I care about this nation,” as she urged Americans to vote for Biden.
The former Vice President “is not perfect,” Obama said, but “there is no perfect candidate, no perfect president.”
“His ability to learn and grow — we find in that the kind of humility and maturity that so many of us yearn for right now,” she continued.
“Joe Biden has served this nation his entire life without ever losing sight of who he is; but more than that, he has never lost sight of who we are, all of us.”
