Michelle Obama lifts up Harris while lambasting Trump

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CHICAGO – In a single, 21-minute speech Tuesday night, Michelle Obama delivered a powerful encapsulation of nearly every key strategic aim of this week’s Democratic National Convention.

She eviscerated former president Donald Trump, lambasting him for “failing forward” as the recipient of “the affirmative action of generational wealth.” She took on race and gender forcefully and directly, warning of the “ugly, misogynistic, racist lies” she expects to come from a Trump-led Republican Party.

She exalted Vice President Kamala Harris, lifting her up as a leader of both genuine substance and strong character – praising “the joy of her laughter and her light.” She linked Harris back to the hope-and-change coalition she and her husband rode to the White House in 2008.

And the former first lady roused the crowd inside Chicago’s United Center into near convulsions with a clear, revival-like directive: “Do something!”

Even before Michelle Obama was introduced, the crowd screamed in anticipation of her arrival as second gentleman Doug Emhoff’s speech wrapped up. As she took the stage, the convention hall throbbed, with delegates holding “USA” signs aloft and roaring.

Michelle Obama – who is famously skeptical of politics and who played a limited role in President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential bid – came out of the political wilderness Tuesday, clad in a sleeveless black tunic and with her hair tightly braided in a ponytail that fell long and thick down her back.

Delivered ahead of her husband’s own convention speech, Obama sent a message that was by turns both political and personal – speaking emotionally of her mother, Marian Robinson, who died this May, and briefly referencing herself becoming “a mother through IVF.” Obama also warned that Trump would distort the truth against Harris, demonizing her in much the same way he did to the Obamas.

“For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to try to make people fear us,” she said. “His limited, narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking, highly educated, successful people who happened to be Black.”

Some delegates in the room, taking in her pointed remarks, had already begun to hoot and applaud when she paused, momentarily, before delivering her kicker: “Wait, I want to know – I want to know,” she said, raising her right hand and waving her index finger. “Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs?’”

At that, the hall erupted, with many of the delegates leaping to their feet and looking around in jubilant disbelief as they took in her jab at Trump’s comments, earlier this summer, that migrants were taking “Black jobs.”

Without explicitly naming him, Obama also used part of her speech to deliver a searing indictment of Trump that almost certainly rang familiar to large swaths of women and people of color.

“If we bankrupt a business or choke in a crisis, we don’t get a second, third or fourth chance,” she said. “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 there waiting to take us to the top.”

Yet Obama also devoted as much – if not more – of her speech to extolling Harris, painting a portrait of deep humanity, as well as of “one of the most qualified people ever to seek the office of the presidency.”

The tableau – one Black woman, both revered and vilified, testifying to the fortitude of another – was not lost on the crowd, which at times nodded and snapped in agreement.

Speaking to what she called the through-line of Harris’s “entire life,” Obama touted “the steel of her spine, the steadiness of her upbringing, the honesty of her example – and, yes, the joy of her laughter and her light.”

“Kamala has shown her allegiance to this nation, not by spewing anger and bitterness, but by living a life of service and always pushing the doors of opportunity open to others,” she said.

The former first lady wound down by evoking both Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and the “amazing lives” they have lived – before calling on her party to take action to deliver them to the White House.

“I am confident that they will lead with compassion, inclusion and grace,” she said. “But they are still only human. They are not perfect. And like all of us, they will make mistakes. But luckily, all this is not just on them.”

“This is up to us, all of us, to be the solution that we seek,” Obama continued, before leading the crowd in a rousing “Do Something!” call and response.

At one point, as Michelle Obama spoke, CNN cut to a split screen of the former first lady on the convention stage just as Harris – returning from a rally 90 miles away in Milwaukee – landed back in Chicago.

Some in the Politico CNN Grill within the convention perimeter briefly paused to marvel at the symbolism, watching Harris descend the steps of Air Force Two as Michelle Obama rallied the nation to – both women hope – help Harris ascend through the highest glass ceiling.