Every four years, Democrats meet for a convention and learn again that Michelle and Barack Obama are their two best communicators. They learned that lesson on Tuesday night of the 2024 convention, where the Obamas were the keynote speakers in two consecutive speeches. Monday’s program was reserved for the incumbent president, and Wednesday and Thursday are always reserved for presidential candidates. The Obamas can have a convention on Tuesday as long as they want.
What’s the key, other than natural communicative talent? (It’s natural communicative talent, above all.) The Obamas have the best team of speechwriters working for them because the Obamas are on their team. Their relative rarity is also to their advantage. We see most of these buffoons every day making speeches at party conventions, making hits on cable TV, or attacking a witness or a committee outside a hearing room. While the Obamas have not retired from politics, they lead fairly private lives on estates in Hawaii and Martha’s Vineyard. Hard-hitting politics is not often on their agenda. Many viewers Tuesday night would have been equally shocked to see how gray Barack Obama has become and that Michelle Obama has not aged at all since they last saw her.
The Obamas’ key advantage, however, is their ability to speak from a position of authority. This allows them to go through the motions that would lose most speakers their audience. He is the first black president and she is the first black first lady. Aside from a disaster in the 2000 congressional race, the Obamas have an impeccable political record – one that could be enhanced if Michelle ever gets the urge. (She won’t.) They speak from proven experience, and they rarely do.
All speakers at the Democratic Party Convention are making fun of Donald Trump. For the Obamas, however, this is new on such a big stage. They are critical Trump in previous speeches, including in their video messages to the 2020 Democratic National Convention. But on Tuesday, the Obamas completely broke away from their traditional belief that presidents do not mock their successors, a tradition that had meant a lot to Barack Obama after George W. Bush passed it on to him. On Tuesday, they were merciless toward Trump.
An important aspect of Michelle Obama’s speech was the rejection of the Republican narrative that Kamala Harris would be a “DEI president” who did not deserve her sudden rise to the top of the ballot. Michelle not only said that Harris was qualified enough to be there. She said Harris is “one of the most qualified people to ever seek the office of president.” Harris, she said, approaches the task with a mindset that Trump could never match because of his own background and character. Harris “understands that most of us will never be given the grace to fail forward” and “will never benefit from the positive discrimination of generational wealth.” Most Americans will not get a “second, third or fourth chance” if they “drive a business into bankruptcy or drown in a crisis.”
“When we see a mountain in front of us,” Michelle said, “we don’t expect there to be an escalator waiting to take us to the top.”
Each further jibe served to align the crowd with the convention’s line: “Who’s going to tell him,” she said of Trump, “that the job he’s currently pursuing might just be one of those ‘black jobs’?”
Barack Obama – who admitted he was “the only person stupid enough to speak directly after Michelle Obama” – described Trump as “a 78-year-old billionaire who hasn’t stopped talking about be problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago.” Trump’s output has been “a constant stream of nagging and complaining that has gotten even worse now that he’s afraid of losing to Kamala.” (This was an interesting admission from Obama, who remains on President Joe Biden’s grudge list, of how little Trump feared defeat to Biden.) He compared Trump to “the neighbor who runs his leaf blower outside your window every minute of the day.”
Most notably, the former president, who for years refrained from actively criticizing his successor, may have made a penis joke about Donald Trump, mentioning Trump’s “weird obsession with crowd size” and deliberately gesturing a few inches apart while holding his hands.
These were certainly the most shared elements of their speeches, but what struck me more was Michelle and Barack Obama’s ability to tell Democrats to stop their own bullshit and make their voices heard.
Michelle Obama’s speech was largely about tempering expectations: Even though Democrats are euphoric now, the next few months will not be a bed of roses. Harris will either stumble or be forced to make difficult decisions that will test the unity of the Democratic coalition, parts of which are known to complain when they lose.
Michelle Obama advised Democrats not to be “their own worst enemies.” She warned against “wringing their hands” whenever “something goes wrong” or “a lie prevails.”
“We must not develop a Goldilocks complex about whether everything is right,” she said. “We must not give in to our fears about whether this country will elect someone like Kamala – instead of doing everything we can to get someone like Kamala elected.” Don’t complain, she said, “if no one has specifically asked you for support. There’s just no time for that kind of stupidity.”
“So consider this your official request: Michelle Obama is asking you to do something.” It may go without saying, but if another conjured-up DNC spokesperson told Democrats not to give in to their worst inclinations, it would only encourage those inclinations further.
All other bad tendencies You Do you see Barack Obama within the culture of the Democratic Party?
“To make progress on the things we care about and that really impact people’s lives, we must remember that we all have our blind spots, contradictions and biases. And if we want to win over those who aren’t yet ready to support our candidates, we need to listen to their concerns — and maybe learn something in the process,” he said. “When a parent or grandparent occasionally says something that makes us cringe, we don’t automatically assume they’re bad people. We recognize that the world moves fast and that they need time and maybe a little encouragement to catch up. Our fellow citizens deserve the same grace we hope they will extend to us.”
Perhaps, he suggested, The is “how we can build a real Democratic majority.” I’m trying to imagine how your average convention nerd, like the somehow always-on-screen New York Governor Kathy Hochul, would be received if she told a hall full of Democrats that they needed to be better for their fellow citizens. She probably wouldn’t want to be within throwing distance of any stray tomatoes.
Obama acknowledged that these ideas might feel “pretty naive” right now. But his very presence as someone who was handily elected president twice on these ideas gave him the authority to, well, pontificate a little. Both he and Michelle Obama might be the best two Democratic speakers because they’re the ones who’ve earned the right to speak most candidly to their party. And of course, it doesn’t hurt to grease the crowd with a few Trump jokes. First.
