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CHICAGO — Michelle Obama first spoke her now-famous aphorism eight years ago when Democrats gathered in Philadelphia: “When they go low, we go high.”
Tonight, there was no going high. Instead, she accused former President Donald Trump of “going small.”
To a rapturous response from the United Center crowd, the former first lady delivered what amounted to a stern lecture to her party — asking it to be laser focused for the next 80 days on winning the election and warning Democrats to not be their “own worst enemies” and instead channel their energy into getting out the vote in November.
Her address was reflective of a tense and highly charged political milieu — one in which Democrats are notably not going high. They’re calling Trump and his running mate JD Vance “weird.” Harris regularly talks about Trump “scamming students,” being found liable of sexual abuse and being found guilty of 34 counts of fraud. And Harris’ running mate Tim Walz at a recent fundraiser called Trump “low energy” and “tired” and said the “guy that needs to get a little rest on the weekend” — thinly veiled attacks on the former president’s age.
Obama did not spare her own withering critiques of Trump.
“Going small is petty, it’s unhealthy, and, quite frankly, it’s unpresidential,” she said to a rapt, standing-room-only audience that hung on her every word. “It’s his same old con: doubling down on ugly, misogynistic, racist lies as a substitute for real ideas and solutions that will actually make people’s lives better.”
The Obama who appeared on stage in Chicago Tuesday night was a more somber, impassioned and urgent version of the former first lady than the one who has spoken at Democratic Party conventions past. Her rousing address — which prompted call and response from the audience, punctuated with yells of agreement and sighs of disgust — offered not just a searing indictment of Trump and his vision for the country but a call to action for her audience to get voters to the polls.
“We cannot afford for anyone to sit on their hands and wait to be called upon. Don’t complain if no one from the campaign has specifically reached out to ask for your support. There is simply no time for that kind of foolishness,” she said, as organizers distributed signs throughout the arena that read “VOTE.” “Our fate is in our hands.”
The former first lady remains highly popular with the American public. In a July Reuters/Ipsos poll, amid questions about whether Joe Biden could continue on as the Democratic nominee, Obama was the only Democrat to beat Trump in a hypothetical matchup, winning 50 percent support to his 39 percent.
Familiar themes of hope and optimism were woven throughout her address, but with an edge and a certain rawness. The former first lady noted that she almost didn’t make it to the convention stage following the death of her mother in May and her own battle with grief.
“Maybe you’ve experienced the same feelings, a deep pit in my stomach, a palpable sense of dread about the future,” she said.
But she has often talked about channeling emotion into action — once describing “going high” as “finding purpose in your rage.” She earned a thunderous round of applause when she punched back at Trump’s suggestion that migrants are taking jobs from Black people.
“Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs’?” she said to roaring applause.
Like the former first lady, Democrats here in Chicago this week have been leaning into Harris’ tonal shift on Trump as they broadly abandon the “going high” approach.
“She’s lived the American dream while he was America’s nightmare,” Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett said Monday.
Harris has warned that democracy is on the ballot, an argument that was a hallmark of Biden’s candidacy. In Houston, she said that Trump would “be a dictator on day one” and “weaponize the Department of Justice against his political enemies, that he will round up peaceful protesters and throw them out of our country, and even, quote, ‘terminate’ the Constitution of the United States.”
While Harris isn’t making democracy central to her campaign, which strikes a more optimistic tone about the future, Democrats are still highlighting Trump’s dangers, as the former first lady did tonight.
“If we start feeling tired, if we start feeling that dread creeping back in, we’ve got to pick ourselves up, throw water on our faces, and do something,” Obama said.
Melanie Mason contributed to this report.
