WASHINGTON (AP) — At the 2016 Democratic National Convention, former first lady Michelle Obama told party members that “when they go low, we go high.”
After four years of President Donald Trump, she came back to give it to them straight.
“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,” Mrs. Obama told her party in a blunt and emotional appeal that capped the first night of the Democrats’ convention.
The former first lady outlined dire stakes for the election ahead, declaring President Donald Trump “in over his head” and the “wrong president for our country.” Warning of possible voter suppression, she told Americans they must vote for Joe Biden “in numbers that cannot be ignored” if they want to preserve the “most basic requirements for a functioning society.”
The scathing assessment was delivered in the last and longest speech in Democrats’ experiment with a virtual convention in the coronavirus era, a spot Mrs. Obama earned through her overwhelming popularity in her party.
She delivered her remarks in a casual setting — a living room, with a Biden campaign sign on the mantle — and identified as much with the beleaguered voters of America as the lineup of politicians that preceded her in the program.
“You know I hate politics,” she said, before diving into a speech that appealed to both her longtime fans in the Democratic coalition and a broad audience she’s drawn since leaving the White House and becoming a bestselling author.
The president “has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head,” she said. “He cannot meet this moment.”
“It is what it is,” Mrs. Obama said — echoing a remark Trump made recently about the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus.
Citing the pandemic, the flagging economy, the political unrest that’s broken out nationwide over systemic racism and what she described as America’s lack of leadership on the world stage, Mrs. Obama said the nation is “underperforming not simply on matters of policy, but on matters of character.”
In contrast, Mrs. Obama said, Biden is a “profoundly decent man” who “knows what it takes to rescue an economy, beat back a pandemic and lead our country.” She recounted how Biden has prevailed through the personal tragedy of losing his first wife, baby daughter and adult son and said Biden will “channel that same grit and passion to help us heal and guide us forward.”
Republican Donald Trump succeeded President Barack Obama, a Democrat, in 2017 and has tried to undo many of Obama’s achievements on health care, the environment and foreign policy, among others.
On Monday, before the event, Trump took a dig at the former first lady’s coming speech, noting that her remarks were prerecorded and that his own speech at the Republican National Convention next week will be live.
“Who wants to listen to Michelle Obama do a taped speech?” he said at a rally in Wisconsin.
Mrs. Obama, who leads an effort to help register people to vote, spoke about the importance of voting in the Nov. 3 election, which will take place amid a pandemic that has killed more than 170,000 Americans and infected more than 5 million in the U.S.
