CHICAGO — Former first lady Michelle Obama electrified the crowd at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday with a speech that hammered former President Trump while only rarely naming him.
But Obama also placed Vice President Harris in the same lineage as former President Obama — as a vehicle for hope.
“Hope is making a comeback,” the former first lady said early in her speech, drawing a direct line between her husband’s historic 2008 presidential campaign and Harris’s quest this year.
The heart of Obama’s speech was to draw a contrast between people from comparatively modest origins like herself, her husband and Harris; and the gilded wealth of figures like Trump.
“Most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward,” Obama insisted, nor can they depend on “an escalator waiting to take us to the top” — an obvious reference to the escalator on which Trump descended at Trump Tower in 2015 to declare his presidential candidacy.
The crowd here at the United Center in Obama’s hometown roared with particular passion at the former first lady’s scathing reference to “the affirmative action of generational wealth” — something that was a reminder both of Trump’s family inheritance and of Republican attacks on programs intended to advance marginalized communities, particularly Black communities.
Obama is one of the most popular figures in her party, at times registering approval ratings higher than those of her husband. These days, she is a bestselling author who has at times sold out arenas for her book events.
Some Democrats have fantasized for years about her running for the White House, but she has long held that she has no interest in seeking elected office — nor much patience for politics in that sense.
But that doesn’t mean she plays down the stakes.
On Tuesday, she delivered a warning to Democrats who are not fully enthused by Harris.
Obama warned of the dangers of a “Goldilocks complex” where potential voters find fault as they wonder about “whether everything is just right”
It was unclear whether she was referring to pro-Palestinian protesters or more generally to dissenters within Democratic ranks.
Obama argued, in essence, that it was too dangerous to cavil about any one specific policy when the need was to “do something” — a phrase that became a refrain in the latter stages of her speech, and which the crowd began to chant.
“We have the power to marry our hope with our action,” Obama said. “We have the power to pay forward the … sacrifice of our mother and fathers and all those who came before us.”
Those lines hinted at the most personal aspect of the speech: Obama noted it was her first time in Chicago since she came to “memorialize” her mother, Marian Robinson, who died in late May at the age of 86.