The last time I watched President Barack Obama deliver a speech in Chicago was in 2017 at the McCormick Place Convention Center. It was his now legendary farewell address. I watched President Obama from the press area behind and parallel to the stage. It was not the most ideal view. But it was the best view for me as I thought about Obama’s legacy and the country’s first Black president, all that he accomplished and the challenges of the color line that hope and change could not hurdle over.
I had a few tears of joy and mourning as I watched Obama’s speech as I thought about how proud my father and mother would be that I, the child of a janitor and home healthcare worker, perpetual renters who never owned a home, and a proud member of the Black working class, was sitting here, so close to America’s first Black president. I wrote the following that evening:
As I stood in the security screening line earlier, I decided that after Obama's farewell address I would go to Michigan Avenue, buy a 34-ounce can of Asahi beer, put it in a brown paper bag and then stand across from Trump Tower. As I took deep sips of my favorite beer I would then look up at that testament to ego and narcissism and proceed to curse Donald Trump — for all the wickedness, damage and insult he has already done and will certainly do to America, her citizens and the world.
But after listening to Obama's farewell address, I decided to not do those things, for that would be to against the spirit, wisdom and guidance that the president had offered the American people in his final address. Now is the time to reflect, organize and decide how best to resist in the age of Donald Trump. It is not a time to rage blindly or with futility.
What comes next I do not know. But it is abundantly clear that as Barack Obama departs, and his successor who is (as I have argued repeatedly) a fascist authoritarian takes the reins of state, we the American people are truly through a glass darkly. Obama told us that the answers lie in ourselves and also with one another: "Yes, we can!" I hope that he was right. I worry that he was wrong.
On Tuesday, President Obama and his wife Michelle Obama returned to Chicago to deliver speeches at the Democratic National Convention. I received several invitations to attend the DNC and its related events. I chose to stay home and watch the Obamas on television. I did not want to risk replacing or complicating my cherished memory of President Obama’s farewell address.
What President Obama and Michelle Obama accomplished this week was a masterclass in storytelling, rhetoric, and an act of public teaching and a call to action in defense of American democracy and freedom. Their speeches and the response to them by the crowd and larger public is also a reminder that President Obama could seek another term in office if he wanted to (and if the law would allow it) — and he would likely win.
In all, the Obamas reminded the Democrats and the American people that democracy is both a verb and a noun. It is something we must do and the work of defeating Trumpism and the deep cultural and institutional problems that birthed it (and the other threats to this country’s democracy and freedom) will be very difficult.
In a new essay, David Rothkopf summarizes the substance and performance of President Obama and Michelle Obama’s speeches at the Democratic National Convention in the following way:
The speeches deserve study. They were masterpieces of political oratory not despite their lack of weighty marble-clad phrases but because of it. They spoke to all Americans in an accessible way that then, once they gained entry into your mind made a beeline for your heart and took it soaring. They were tough when they had to be tough, funny at just the right moments and then in the end, inspiring, the kinds of call to action this year’s high stakes election demands.
But what was perhaps most striking about the Obama addresses was their generosity toward Kamala Harris. The Obamas showed up to help another Democrat, the party and the country. They knew their roles. They are pillars of the party, perhaps the most popular Democrats in the country. But they showed up not to burnish their reputations but to use them to help elevate the country’s next great leader, one in whom they clear deeply and sincerely believe.
They delivered two of the great addresses ever delivered at a U.S. political convention. And they and everyone in the house knew they were just one of the opening acts for the main attraction.
The positive energy and hope of the Democrats made for a swift embrace of Harris and Tim Walz as happy warriors in defense of American democracy, freedom, and decency. The convention made clear that they finally believe, if not know in their hearts, that they can defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA movement:
At Slate, Jim Newell focuses in on how President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama used satire and humor to sharpen their truth-telling about the extreme dangerousness of Donald Trump and what he represents. The Obamas, perhaps even more importantly, also told the Democrats some uncomfortable truths about what this moment will demand of them and the nation:
What caught my attention more, though, was the ability Michelle and Barack Obama have to tell Democrats to cut their own crap, and be heard.
Much of Michelle Obama’s speech was managing expectations about how, even if Democrats feel euphoric now, the next couple of months will be no picnic. Harris will either have stumbles or be forced to make difficult decisions that test the unity of the Democratic coalition, sects of which are known to complain when they’re on the losing end.
Advising Democrats not to “be our own worst enemies,” Michelle Obama warned against “wringing our hands” the “minute something goes wrong” or “the minute a lie takes hold.”
“We cannot get a Goldilocks complex about whether everything is just right,” she said. “We cannot indulge our anxieties 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 reached out to ask for your support. There is simply no time for that kind of foolishness.”
“So consider this to be your official ask: Michelle Obama is asking you to do something.” It may go without saying, but if any other DNC speaker drawn out of a hat told Democrats to stop succumbing to their worst tendencies, it would only encourage those tendencies further.
Michelle Obama’s speech (and President Obama’s) also emphasized the importance of hope, family, community, and how we, the striving children of the Black Freedom Struggle, stand on the shoulders of our ancestors and the sacrifices they made to expand American democracy for all people.
On this, historian Heather Cox Richardson writes at her site Letters From an American how:
If President Obama emphasized tonight that the nation depends on the good will of ordinary people, it was his wife, former first lady Michelle Obama, who spoke with the voice of those people and made it clear that only the American people can preserve democracy.
In a truly extraordinary speech, perfectly delivered, Mrs. Obama described her mother as someone who lived out the idea of hope for a better future, working for children and the community. “She was glad to do the thankless, unglamorous work that for generations has strengthened the fabric of this nation,” Mrs. Obama said, “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.”
Unlike her husband, though, Mrs. Obama called out Trump and his allies, who are trying to destroy that worldview. “No one has a monopoly on what it means to be an American,” she said. “No one.” “[M]ost of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward,” she said. “We will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth. If we bankrupt a business…or choke in a crisis, we don't get a second, third, or fourth chance. If things don't go our way, we don't have the luxury of whining or cheating others to get further ahead…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 waiting to take us to the top. No, we put our heads down. We get to work. In America, we do something."
And then Mrs. Obama took up the mantle of her mother, warning that demonizing others and taking away their rights, “only makes us small.” It “demeans and cheapens our politics. It only serves to further discourage good, big-hearted people from wanting to get involved at all. America, our parents taught us better than that.”
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At the Washington Post, Michele Norris, who is a friend of Michelle Obama, reflects on how the First Lady’s speech, habitus, and gifted insights are channeled through her experiences as a Black woman.
“Her speech will be studied for years because it works on many levels. The rhetoric and body language were culturally specific yet broadly relatable. The full-throated defense of a Black woman candidate without shying away from the matters of race and class and misogyny that will be used to clutter her path. The reminder that 'no one has a monopoly on what it means to be American' and the stirring call for people to remember those who came before them: 'Let us not squander the sacrifices our elders made.' That line paid homage to her mother’s generation, people who grew up in an America where millions had to fight for the privilege to participate in democracy.”
Via email, I asked Audra Wilson, who is the president and CEO of the Shriver Center on Poverty Law, based in Chicago, and former deputy press and policy director for Obama for Illinois, 2004 for her personal reflections and insights:
I was both a campaign staffer and an Illinois delegate at the 2004 Democratic National Convention when then state senator Barack Obama gave his legendary “Red State Blue State” speech. At that time, he leaned heavily on the greatness of our nation, and acknowledged that despite its many challenges, there was no place on earth but America where his story would be possible. I was also on site and up close in Grant Park in November of 2008 where Barack and Michelle made history in being elected the first Black president and first lady of the United States. So naturally, I was excited to hear them speak at the 2024 convention, and on the cusp of another milestone: the election of America’s first female president. As a couple, they still exuded the same elegance, grace and wisdom as they always have. But their tone was decidedly starker.
Barack was still hopeful but more pragmatic. In speaking about the American experiment of “we, the people” he reminded us that such a declaration includes everyone, not just a privileged few. But to me, Michelle’s words felt like the release of a valve of pent-up frustration and unspoken truths. She clearly feared no retribution for speaking her truth. [She was proudly and unapologetically Black, with her trademark muscular arms and braided hair proudly on display, a huge nod to Black women in C-suites like me who have long felt the pressure to conform physically and otherwise to fit into corporate spaces.] She both expressed her love for her country while simultaneously admonishing it for the failure to live up to its ideals.
In the eight years since Obama’s farewell address and his and Michelle Obama’s speeches on Tuesday, the American people have experienced so much. We “the Americans” have been weathered and traumatized by the Age of Trump and its many horrors. This weathering and trauma and the whirlwind of the last seven or eight weeks here in the United States that included one of the worst debate performances in modern American political history, an assassination attempt, Trump’s coronation as a fascist god king, and President Biden stepping aside so that Vice President Kamala Harris can ascend to history (again), has made these feelings of peril and exhaustion and then hope and possibility—and yes, anxiety because of a fear of disappointment and failure—even more extreme. So much can and will happen in the 70 or so days until Election Day.
Looking forward to Inauguration Day, there is a coincidence of dates and events that may prove to be prophetic and good or chilling and nightmarish. Monday, January 20, 2025, is both Inauguration Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
There is the Hope. If Vice President Harris wins, America’s multiracial democracy, what Brother King and the other hope warriors struggled, died, and were martyred for, continues and will perhaps even be reenergized.
There is the Nightmare. Donald Trump wins and he becomes the country’s first dictator. Trump is an enemy of multiracial democracy and he and his MAGAfied Republicans and their neofascist enforcers and agents impose a 21st century version of apartheid on the American people. Jim and Jane Crow are back as they wear MAGA hats and chant “Make America Great Again!”
Brother King famously counseled that, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” This outcome is not natural or preordained. We must do the bending. These are the marching orders that President Obama and Michelle Obama have given. It is now up to the Democrats and other pro-democracy Americans to go out there and get the job done.
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