Michelle Obama warns against ‘Goldilocks complex’ in powerful speech to Democrats
Michelle Obama has said ‘‘Hope is back’’ in the Democratic Party after Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden.
Speaking to the Democratic national convention in Chicago before about 50 million viewers on Wednesday, the former First Lady urged the voters to back the 59-year-old Harris shortly after she embraced the party’s presidential ticket on Tuesday night.
Mrs Obama, 60, speaking in her home city when endorsing Ms Harris in August last month said that there was something “wonderfully magical” in the air since the g !724 first sign changed and Ms Harris took over from Mr Biden.
‘All of America, hope is making a comeback,’ she declared to relief of thousands of Democrats gathered at the United Center.
She painted Ms Harris as ‘more than ready for this moment’ adding that the vice-presidential candidate ‘could be one of the most qualified candidates to ever seek the presidency of America’.
In a nod to the historic nature of her White House bid, she said Democrats could not afford to “get a Goldilocks complex”, adding: “We cannot allow ourselves the luxury of worrying over whether this country will elect someone like Kamala instead of focusing all the energy on the election of a candidate like Kamala. ”
Mrs Obama proceeded further to speak of Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, who succeeded Barack Obama in 2017, and who she said would try to ‘bend’ the truth in what could be interpreted as a racially coded language of the then Republican candidate.
“My husband and I, sadly, know a little something about this,” she said. For years, Trump used all his abilities and resources to attempt to instill the fear of us in everyone.
“His rather constricted and provincial outlook on life made him afraid of the existence of two intelligent, well-educated, successful, black people. ”
Referencing Trump’s claim that illegal immigrants were taking “black jobs”, Mrs Obama quipped: “Who is going to explain to him that the job that he is actively hunting around might just be one of those ‘black jobs’?” Audience cheered with laughter.
Nobody knows the Democrats’ darling better than Mrs Clinton, the former First Lady, who spoke of the Republican candidate, though not by name, many times in her address.
She laid down how “most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward”, or “benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth” in a scathing attack on the 78-year-old former president and property mogul.
Her speech was made on hearing that the Obamas played a role in supporting the drive to get Mr Biden, whom Mr Obama served as deputy for eight years, to drop out of the race.
“It does not matter; there is only Kamala Harris and Tim Walz,” she said to the capacity crowd, explaining how had made a comeback on a “new hope”.
Ms Harris’s entry into the race has caused major upswing in the number of polls that had Mr Biden on a losing trajectory up to July 21 when he dropped out of the race. She now has a lead over Trump in many of the swing states, albeit a very thin one.
But Mrs Obama said that although Ms Harris and her VP candidate Mr Walz were ‘filling the arenas’ and ‘people are fired up’, they would have ‘a steep climb against those who will do anything to have a different result’.
She warned that, with just two and a half months until election day, “we cannot afford for anyone to sit on their hands and wait to be called upon”, adding: “One can only commend them on having their priorities right: There is simply no time for that kind of foolishness”.
She said that in a second Trump term there would be “ugly, misogynistic, racist lies being doubled-down more than ever,” there would be “even more destruction of the Affordable Healthcare and loss of women’s right to choose, our access to literature being banned. ”
She then introduced her husband who even to date is among the most popular figures in the country’s polital arena. He spoke on the second day of the four-day event in terms of the Democratic convention, and stated that America was ‘ready for change’.
Addressing Tuesday’s programme there was also a speech by Doug Emhoff hoping to assume the position once taken by the Mrs Obama.
The new ‘second gentleman’ presented himself to the populace and referred to Ms Harris as being a ‘happy warrior’ but ‘very much so steel plated’.