Michelle and Barack Obama had a common message in speeches at the Democratic Convention:
America is kinder, better, and less divided than Trump would have us think. Character matters.
Trump is his own worst enemy.
Michelle Obama spoke about values and community. She honored her recently deceased mother.
You see, my mom, in her steady, quiet way, lived out that striving sense of hope every single day of her life. She believed that all children, all — all people have value. That anyone can succeed if given the opportunity. She and my father did not aspire to be wealthy. In fact, they were suspicious of folks who took more than they needed. They understood that it wasn’t enough for their kids to thrive if everyone else around us was drowning.
So, my mother volunteered at the local school. She — she always looked out for the other kids on the block. She was glad to do the thankless, unglamorous work that for generations has strengthened the fabric of this nation. The belief that if you do unto others, if you love thy neighbor, if you work and scrape and sacrifice, it will pay off. If not for you, then maybe for your children or your grandchildren.
You see, those values have been passed on through family farms and factory towns, through tree-lined streets and crowded tenements, through prayer groups and National Guard units and social-studies classrooms. Those were the values my mother poured into me until her very last breath.
Kamala Harris and I built our lives on the same foundational values.
Barack Obama made the same point about values and character:
Who will fight for me? Who’s thinking about my future; about my children’s future – about our future together? One thing is for certain: Donald Trump is not losing sleep over these questions. This is a 78-year-old billionaire who hasn’t stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago. It’s been a constant stream of gripes and grievances that’s actually gotten worse now that he’s afraid of losing to Kamala. The childish nicknames and crazy conspiracy theories and weird obsession with crowd size. It just goes on and on. The other day, I heard someone compare Trump to the neighbor who keeps running his leaf blower outside your window every minute of every day.
From a neighbor, that’s exhausting. From a president, it’s just dangerous. The truth is, Donald Trump sees power as nothing more than a means to his ends. He wants the middle class to pay the price for another huge tax cut that would mostly help him and his rich friends. He killed a bipartisan immigration deal that would’ve helped secure our southern border because he thought trying to actually solve the problem would hurt his campaign. He doesn’t seem to care if more women lose their reproductive freedoms since it won’t affect his life.
Most of all, Donald Trump wants us to think that this country is hopelessly divided between us and them; between the real Americans who support him and the outsiders who don’t. And he wants you to think that you’ll be richer and safer if you just give him the power to put those “other” people back in their place.
It’s one of the oldest tricks in politics – from a guy whose act has gotten pretty stale. We don’t need four more years of bluster and chaos. We’ve seen that movie – and we all know that the sequel’s usually worse.
The Obamas' speeches reminded us of the exhaustion many Americans feel. Trump has been the central figure in American politics for nine years. He reshaped the GOP. He dominates the political conversation. Trump continues his schtick because a large body of Americans -- a majority of the GOP primary electorate -- like and demand what Trump presents. He is frank and unscripted. His precise words don't hold up to scrutiny, but his mood has appeal. He is angry, frustrated, resentful, suspicious, and belligerent, and a group of people connect with that. He represents a rugged America, an American Rambo.
The Obamas' speeches remind voters that there is another tradition of American greatness. The good neighbor. The cooperator. It's a different mood and a different national character. It isn't elite. It is regular people who work hard and live normal lives, raising children with good values. It is common. Common decency.
The Obamas set up a contrast with Trump. They invited people to imagine four more years of anger, division, political chaos -- a neighbor with a loud leaf blower outside one's window.
They don't need to invent a straw man of bad-neighbor Trump. He writes it himself in all caps and he ad libs it at rallies. He has gotten worse recently. Trump isn't reading the room. His campaign staff cannot control him because being untethered is part of his schtick.
[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com. Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]
7 comments:
Yes, the Obama's did a good job last night, focusing on "hope", rather than the "hope and change" of Obama's first campaign for President.
They could not include the "change" portion because of the Biden/Harris administration that was in power the previous 4 years, and the D majority that was in place for at least 2 of those years.
There is plenty to complain about for both Harris/Walz and Trump/Vance, but those are the only two choices we have in November.
From a voter registration standpoint, neither the D's nor the R's have a majority nor a plurality, so the challenge is and will continue to be that center; the center-right and center-left, and the non-affiliated voters who will determine who will be running the country for the next 4 years.
At some point we need to move past the rhetoric and focus on the policies that each are planning to put in place if elected.
As Obama said, four more years of Trump would be four more years of anger, division, political chaos -- a neighbor with a loud leaf blower outside one's window. It’s beyond belief that Republicans want that convicted criminal who tried to overthrow the government to be our president. They should be ashamed, but they have no shame.
“In fact, they [Michelle’s parents] were suspicious of those who took more than they needed”.
Yes, the Obamas need those three luxury homes and an estimated $150 to $200 million dollars!
That snark aside, however, those speeches were well-delivered and effective for the Democrats.
Recently reading about dementia and one of the courses of dementia is a lack of filtering your emotions, probably from a diminishing frontal cortex. Well, Donald never bothered with much of a filter, but now it’s gone almost completely. Maybe he really can’t help himself in that regard. It’s rage versus hope. When USA is chanted, it’s proclaiming we’re good, not we are failing. That strikes me as a winning contrast.
The candidates haven’t made any secret of their policies. Trump wants to build concentration camps and deport 11 million people, dismantle the Department of Education, use the Department of Justice to get back at those trying to hold him accountable for his crimes, fill the government with toadies who don’t care about the Constitution any more than he does, etc. Harris is more rational, not to mention legal. Politico has a nice rundown of her positions:
https://www.politico.com/interactives/2024/kamala-harris-tim-walz-policy-2024-election/
With some hindsight it's evident that Democrats didn't anticipate the backlash from the first successful African American president.
Tuesday's speeches were a reminder of that.
I'm left wondering if they have truly absorbed the lesson. Most of the message so far is Democratic boilerplate and pointless denigration of Trump. It's as if the real threat, white nationalism, has evaporated, when the Harris candidacy is certain to make it worse.
The Obama's did not get those homes and money by grifting their constituenirs. The Former President had already had some best selling books, making him a Millionaire, books which he had written himself, unlike TFC huringva ghostwriter to
memorialize his gift of graft.
I sense some envy LD.
Post a Comment