CHICAGO — Eight years ago, then-first lady Michelle Obama urged her Democrats to take a civil approach to the fight against the Republicans and their presidential candidate, Donald Trump.
“When they go low,” Obama said at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, “we go high.”
That was then.
On the second night of this year’s Democratic convention, Tuesday, here in her hometown of the Windy City, the former first lady moved into a more direct confrontation with the Republican nominee, one that more closely matches Vice President Kamala Harris’ slogan: “When we fight, we win.”
“His narrow and narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking, educated, successful people who also happened to be black,” Obama said of Trump’s treatment of her and her husband, former President Barack Obama.
She alluded to her hopes that Harris would win — and Trump’s repeated use of the term “Black jobs” — and chided him. “Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s looking for right now might be one of those Black jobs?” she said.
When she attacked Trump, she accused him of “shaming on him,” which she called “unpresidential.”
“Why would we accept this from someone who aspires to our highest office?” Obama asked.
Her evolution follows that of a Democratic Party that last month showed a heightened taste for political bloodiness, when party elites successfully pressured President Joe Biden to abandon his reelection bid after a dreadful debate performance against Trump. With Biden’s endorsement and no competition, Harris easily rose to the top of the ticket.
Jim Messina, who managed Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign and watched Michelle Obama’s speech on Tuesday before it was delivered, said earlier Tuesday that the former first lady would take the new course “to remind everyone how close we are” in the battle between Harris and Trump.
If Harris is elected, she would become the country’s first woman — and the first woman of color — to win the presidency. Obama, the wife of the nation’s first black president, has predicted that Trump will renew the attacks on Harris’ race and gender that have marked their first weeks as direct opponents.
“It’s the same story over and over again: he continues to use ugly, misogynistic, racist lies as a substitute for real ideas and solutions that will actually make people’s lives better,” Obama said.
In an interview earlier Tuesday, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), who also grew up in Chicago, said there is no conflict between choosing the right path and fighting hard.
“I think we’re still going high,” Pressley said. “We’re not afraid to mix it up though.”
The Massachusetts congressman said Democrats can present an ambitious policy plan to the public while fending off attacks.
“We will respond, but we will not be distracted or distracted by it,” she said.
In addition to criticizing Trump, Obama praised Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and urged Democrats to redouble their efforts on behalf of the ticket in the difficult days between now and the Nov. 5 election.
“When we start to feel tired, when we start to feel that fear coming back,” Obama said, “we need to pick ourselves up, throw water on our faces and do something!”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said Tuesday that the former first lady is good at motivating Democrats to go to the polls.
“When she tells people to go vote,” Klobuchar said, “they listen.”
Early in her remarks, Obama intertwined Harris’s history-making bid with her own husband’s 2008 campaign, which made him an embodiment of the slogan “hope and change.” Many Democrats have drawn the same parallel between his first run for president and the energy they sensed in the first few weeks of Harris’s campaign.
“America, hope is returning!” Obama said.
“There’s something wonderfully magical in the air, isn’t there?” she said. “Not just here in this arena, but spreading throughout the land that we love — a familiar feeling that’s been buried too deep for too long. You know what I’m talking about? It’s the infectious power of hope!”
What Democrats really hope is that it ends with the familiar feeling of victory in November.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
