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| Michelle Obama speech crushes Trump with weight of women's experience | Michelle Obama speech crushes Trump with weight of women's experience |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| Michelle Obama delivered a masterly rebuke of years of racist and sexist attacks in a speech on Thursday about the man who has capitalized on them for more than a year. | Michelle Obama delivered a masterly rebuke of years of racist and sexist attacks in a speech on Thursday about the man who has capitalized on them for more than a year. |
| With searing rhetoric, the nation’s first African American first lady described the pain and humiliation women have endured for generations in a speech denouncing Donald Trump, whose political beginnings are rooted in the conspiracy around her husband’s citizenship and whose path to the White House is blocked only by a candidate who would be the first female president. | |
| Obama shamed the Republican nominee for his “sexually predatory behavior” after a wave of women came forward with sexual harassment and assault allegations, following the release of a 2005 recording in which Trump boasts about groping and kissing women without their consent. | |
| “I listen to all of this and I feel it so personally, and I’m sure that many of you do too, particularly the women,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion as she addressed a gymnasium full of people in New Hampshire. | |
| “The shameful comments about our bodies. The disrespect of our ambitions and intellect. The belief that you can do anything you want to a woman. It is cruel. It’s frightening. And the truth is, it hurts.” | |
| In her 25-minute speech, Obama did not mention black women or women of color but she didn’t have to. That it was her – a black mother of two daughters she raised in a “house built by slaves” – who delivered the definitive rebuke to Trump and his treatment of women registered the point that all women are vulnerable to sexism, sexual harassment and assault. | |
| “I can’t stop thinking about this,” Obama said. “It has shaken me to my core in a way that I couldn’t have predicted. So while I’d love nothing more than to pretend like this isn’t happening, and to come out here and do my normal campaign speech, it would be dishonest and disingenuous to me to just move on to the next thing like this was all just a bad dream.” | “I can’t stop thinking about this,” Obama said. “It has shaken me to my core in a way that I couldn’t have predicted. So while I’d love nothing more than to pretend like this isn’t happening, and to come out here and do my normal campaign speech, it would be dishonest and disingenuous to me to just move on to the next thing like this was all just a bad dream.” |
| More than a year before the tape’s release and the allegations, Trump lost his temper over a debate question about his history of making offensive and lewd remarks about women. In the months between, Trump attacked a grieving Gold Star mother, who is Muslim, and body-shamed a Latina beauty queen who revealed that he had called her “Miss Piggy”. | More than a year before the tape’s release and the allegations, Trump lost his temper over a debate question about his history of making offensive and lewd remarks about women. In the months between, Trump attacked a grieving Gold Star mother, who is Muslim, and body-shamed a Latina beauty queen who revealed that he had called her “Miss Piggy”. |
| All the while Republicans largely stood by his side. As many have noted, Republicans and the media only drew the line on his behavior in response to instances of impropriety – and later allegations of sexual assault – against white women. | All the while Republicans largely stood by his side. As many have noted, Republicans and the media only drew the line on his behavior in response to instances of impropriety – and later allegations of sexual assault – against white women. |
| The Obamas, as articulated often by her husband, have long believed that the “arc of the moral universe” bends away from people like Donald Trump, but the 2016 election has surely tested their faith. At turns, it’s hard not to see 2016 and the rise of Donald Trump as a referendum on history, a sharp rebuke to the candidacy of the first black president and a blockade against the first woman president. In so many ways, he is everything Obama and Clinton are not. | The Obamas, as articulated often by her husband, have long believed that the “arc of the moral universe” bends away from people like Donald Trump, but the 2016 election has surely tested their faith. At turns, it’s hard not to see 2016 and the rise of Donald Trump as a referendum on history, a sharp rebuke to the candidacy of the first black president and a blockade against the first woman president. In so many ways, he is everything Obama and Clinton are not. |
| “It reminds us of stories we heard from our mothers and grandmothers about how, back in their day, the boss could say and do whatever he pleased to the women in the office, and even though they worked so hard, jumped over every hurdle to prove themselves, it was never enough,” Obama said. “We thought all of that was ancient history, didn’t we … but here we are, in 2016, and we’re hearing these exact same things every day on the campaign trail.” | “It reminds us of stories we heard from our mothers and grandmothers about how, back in their day, the boss could say and do whatever he pleased to the women in the office, and even though they worked so hard, jumped over every hurdle to prove themselves, it was never enough,” Obama said. “We thought all of that was ancient history, didn’t we … but here we are, in 2016, and we’re hearing these exact same things every day on the campaign trail.” |
| Michelle Obama, who has carefully cultivated an everywoman appeal, is indisputably Clinton’s most powerful – and popular – surrogate on the trail. And perhaps only Trump could have brought together the former rivals and first ladies – one who cannot wait to leave the White House and the other who cannot wait to get back in. | Michelle Obama, who has carefully cultivated an everywoman appeal, is indisputably Clinton’s most powerful – and popular – surrogate on the trail. And perhaps only Trump could have brought together the former rivals and first ladies – one who cannot wait to leave the White House and the other who cannot wait to get back in. |
| During the second presidential debate on Sunday, Trump tried to step between the women. He falsely claimed that Obama had run “some of the most vicious commercials I’ve ever seen” against Clinton during the 2008 Democratic primary. | During the second presidential debate on Sunday, Trump tried to step between the women. He falsely claimed that Obama had run “some of the most vicious commercials I’ve ever seen” against Clinton during the 2008 Democratic primary. |
| “You talk about friend? Go back and take a look at those commercials,” Trump said. | “You talk about friend? Go back and take a look at those commercials,” Trump said. |
| But to anyone paying attention, the attack on their friendship felt empty. Obama’s New Hampshire speech was her sixth campaign event for Clinton in a month. In battleground states across the country, Obama has aggressively made the case for Clinton in a way no one else – not even Bill Clinton – has been able to crystallize. | |
| “In Hillary, we have a candidate who has dedicated her life to public service, someone who has waited her turn and helped out while waiting,” Obama said on Thursday. “She is an outstanding mother. She has raised a phenomenal young woman. She is a loving, loyal wife. She’s a devoted daughter who cared for her mother until her final days. | “In Hillary, we have a candidate who has dedicated her life to public service, someone who has waited her turn and helped out while waiting,” Obama said on Thursday. “She is an outstanding mother. She has raised a phenomenal young woman. She is a loving, loyal wife. She’s a devoted daughter who cared for her mother until her final days. |
| “And if any of us had raised a daughter like Hillary Clinton, we would be so proud. We would be proud.” | “And if any of us had raised a daughter like Hillary Clinton, we would be so proud. We would be proud.” |