“A president’s words have the power to move markets. They can start wars or broker peace. They can summon our better angels or awaken our worst instincts. You simply cannot fake your way through this job.“
Michelle Obama
The strength of oratory can be immense. To hear words on our national stage that perfectly meet a moment in time, generally crisis, is as rare as it is momentous. It requires the speaker to economize without sacrificing critical substance, provide flourish without fluff that dilutes meaning, and convey a unifying theme that doesn’t debilitate details it is meant to unite. No easy task.
At Gettysburg, Lincoln synopsized national calamity and its human cost, while extrapolating why such sacrifice could not be in vain – all in less than five minutes. Precisely 100 years later, near the foot of a memorial built to honor Lincoln’s legacy, MLK stunned thousands and became a voice for the ages, with effortless clarity and confident cadence. “I Have a Dream” immediately became a crucial signpost for America’s national mission, both aspiration and non-negotiable demand of racial justice. Lincoln and MLK each simultaneously clarified their greatness while rising to occasions where nothing less would suffice.
Last night, within the sterile virtual confines a pandemic curve we’ve abjectly failed to flatten now necessitates, Michelle Obama answered history’s challenge as well as anyone possibly could. Taking a place along the perch of our all-time greats, the former First Lady delivered a majestic 18 minute gut check Americans can’t ignore. It was a 10.5, ideal in every way. Exactly what we needed at the precise moment we needed it!
The terrible tragedy of our time is reflected in the inverse proportion a person’s goodness can now be assessed by a third of our nation’s disdain for them. That is, forget all other metrics, the intensity of the wretched core’s loathing, always encapsulated on our President’s Twitter feed and Fox’s prime time lineup, for a particular public figure now clarifies how invaluable they are to the nation’s prospects. Think Adam Schiff or Dr. Fauci. Rest assured, after last night, if only by that measure, Michelle Obama is pivotal to our survival.
PBS’s Judy Woodruff and crew sounded an ominous pre-convention theme as they took a “game day” approach to the proceedings, downplaying Trump’s daily outrages with repeated inanity about “what Biden needs to do.” The thesis Biden-Harris have to convince America they offer ideas that make them more than just “not Trump” presupposes “stale” good faith and honor isn’t enough these days, an insidious falsehood. PBS producers evidently believe “fair and balanced” requires inviting Trumpie journalist Chris Buskirk to muse about the “largely positive” road forward on Covid policy, as well as Ohio MAGAite Gary Abernathy to sternly observe Biden must make certain “not to talk down” to pro-lifers or gun owners. Thankfully, Michelle Obama was having none of it.
Her address was void of specific policies past Obama-era basics Trump inherited and ceaselessly claimed credit for, and the myriad of agreements he has deserted while destroying the continuity of “alliances championed by presidents like Reagan and Eisenhower.“ This was more a manifesto on essential character traits and habits required by the Presidency and a vibrant society. That it was by far the most comprehensive condemnation of MAGA’s long list of outrages put forth by any of the country’s former White House occupants only reinforced its sense of urgency. She was succinct yet sufficient, graceful yet fully damning. The total package. What we must stand for and its existential incompatibility with a Trump Presidency. It doesn’t matter whether she was preaching to the choir; truth doesn’t care about its audience.
Anyone who wants to take issue with Michelle Obama’s characterization of the American experience as a quest to provide more for our children, a story with “a lot of beauty” as well as “a lot of struggle and injustice and work left to do…,” should be put on the spot to describe it better. They will fail. Just as they will to compete with the bona fides she brings to the table as “one of a handful of people living today who have seen firsthand the immense weight and awesome power of the presidency.” It “is a hard job,” and demands “clear-headed judgment, a mastery of complex and competing issues, a devotion to facts and history, a moral compass….”
It’s doubtful many would argue her list of requirements is off base. After nearly one full term, it is impossible to contend Trump has ever made the slightest effort to meet any of them. Last night, the better half of Bunker Duffer’s greatest nemesis put his lazy ineptitude exactly where it belongs, before the country he has gravely injured and means to hurt some more. Her calmly ferocious delivery will resonate as shorthand for a gargantuan civic mistake Biden and Harris will be the first to try and remedy; a thankless task the vanquished Trump and his seditious minions will do every idiotic thing they can conjure to obstruct.
We can’t determine what a national moment is going to look like and entail. Sometimes it’s as obvious as after an epic battle of a defining Civil War. Other times it might sneak up as a radio address that pinpoints fear as our worst enemy. Who is to say? Sometimes we recognize it immediately, other times not, leaving it for history to identify. Last night we did. A disastrous fraudster finally laid bare for all to see, naked and utterly barren, by one of our finest, who has held her tongue for far too long, but made the wait more worthwhile. A $1500 claimer taken to task by a Secretariat of our political racing oval, imperiled by the nag’s non-existent work ethic and refusal to prepare.
Several weeks ago, the POTUS tacitly acknowledged his refusal to lead has caused Covid-19 fatalities into the hundreds of thousands. “It is what it is” he shrugged vacantly in yet another grotesque example of his pathological self-unawareness. Last night, Michelle Obama summed up her assessment of Trump’s performance thusly:
“He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is.“
One worn and overused throwaway line has never underscored so much distance in our national condition. At one side of the chasm is the pathetic indifference of an existential disaster our cynical apathy helped create and abide, nails-on-a-chalkboard. On the other, a pitch perfect summation of how unacceptable our current national leadership situation is and a call to action for resolving it. The immense power of oratory that rises to the moment! BC