Who writes her speeches?
“I lay awake at night wondering, ‘What in the world is going on?’” asked Michelle Obama early in her Saturday rally speech in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She’s not alone. The woman I spoke with on Friday said the same while choking back tears.
But, holy hell, who writes Obama’s speeches? There is a lot of her in them, obviously. Her convention speech in August pulled few punches. This speech last night, her first since the DNC, featured bare knuckles.
“Searing and passionate,” the AP called it.
“A scathing indictment of Donald Trump,” said CNN.
“Y’all know I hate politics,” Obama began, referencing the stakes in the presidential election. “But I hate to see folks taken advantage of even more.” She took on the threats to America, and especially to American women. Specifically, from Donald Trump (NPR):
“I hope that you will forgive me if I’m a little angry that we are indifferent to his erratic behavior, his obvious mental decline, his history as a convicted felon, a known slum lord, a predator found liable for sexual abuse — all of this while we pick apart Kamala’s answers from interviews that he doesn’t even have the courage to do, y’all,” she said.
Obama described Harris as a “grown up” with a clear set of policies, and said she fears “too many people are willing to write off Trump’s childish, mean spirited antics by saying, ‘Well, Trump’s just being Trump,’ rather than question his horrible behavior. Some folks think he’s funny.”
“That’s exactly how he got elected the first time — folks gave him a pass and rolled the dice betting that he couldn’t possibly be that bad,” she said.
If you don’t have 40 minutes to spare, catch this clip from the finale of her speech. Before this, she lays bare what women face through their lives from menarche to menopause and how, too little, the men in their lives do not appreciate the the tenuousness of women’s reproductive health care they neither understand nor attend.
“So I am asking y’all from the core of my being to take our lives seriously. “
“If we don’t get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother, we as women, will become collateral damage to your rage,” Obama said, addressing men threatened by societal change and attracted to Trump’s implicit promise of rolling it back.
“So, are you as men, prepared to look into the eyes of the women and children you love and tell them that you supported this assault on our safety? And to the women listening, we have every right to demand that the men in our lives do better by us. We have to use our voices to make these choices clear to the men that we love — our lives are worth more than their anger and disappointment. And we are more than just baby-making vessels.”
Perhaps only Michelle Obama can give a Michelle Obama speech. But, damn!