Michelle Obama, the DNC, and how to stop being a nice girl and start fighting back
"When they go low, we fight back."
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Was it me, or was the pent-up rage of millions of women fueling the energy at the DNC?
They have come for our bodies, for our children, for our rights, and it feels like the political response for the last eight years has been…meh. It’s been vanilla. It’s been like: hey, that’s not very nice! And the response from mainstream media has been about the same at best, and at worst has been complicit (cough…cough NYT Opinion columns1).
But the tide is changing and dang, it feels good.
Our daughters (and all the kids) are watching, and if the political climate tells that them it’s just not that important to keep them from dying, or being harmed, or being able to choose their future; then it tells them a lot about who they are and what their value is in this country. Up to this point, it has felt like we are not really worth fighting for.
And are any of us really free, or really citizens, if our bodies, futures, children, and votes aren’t worth protecting?
Now the pent up outrage from women feels like it’s finally been broadcast and it’s finally been given a stage. I hear the roar of millions of women, and it is glorious.
When Michelle Obama said that we are tired of Trump using “the 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,” and the televised audience absolutely lost their freaking minds, I heard the roar of millions of women who are angry, relieved, and overjoyed that someone is finally calling it.
The right’s platform is not family-friendly or pro-life: it’s sexist, homophobic, racist, mean bizarre bullshit. It’s time to call it like it is, and hit back.
The look on Michelle Obama’s face seemed to say: It’s time to put them in our sights, ladies, and take them down (in a rhetorical and political and nonviolent yet still badass way).
I’m not particularly interested in political conventions, or in conducting celebrity worship for politicians (I would be perfectly fine never hearing from Bill Clinton again, tbh). But seeing issues that impact women and children that we have been writing about here at MR for years—things like reproductive freedom and inequity for children, and gun reform, and maternal health—get center stage in national politics and making headlines…is breathtaking. Especially in a convention that was much less white than what we’re used to, and one that centered Black women in a joyously historic way.
It also has to be said that there was and is pain around the convention, particularly when Palestinian-Americans were not permitted to speak onstage—a glaring omission that writer Ta-Nehisi Coates called the “one major omission of the party that claims diversity as its strength.” Part of moving forward has to be demanding that our leaders include and fighting for all women and all children.
In honor of fighting women (and the political version of quitting people pleasing), here are 12 favorite quotes and moments from the convention where “women took center stage” to kickstart your week.
“She believed that all children, all people have value. She and my father didn’t aspire to be wealthy—in fact, they were suspicious of folks who took more than they needed. They understood that it wasn’t enough for their kids to thrive if everyone else around us was drowning.” -Michelle Obama, speaking about her mother Marian Robinson
“Shutting down the Department of Education, banning our books—none of that will prepare our kids for the future. Demonizing our children for being who they are and loving who they love—that doesn’t make anybody’s life better. Instead, it only makes us small.” -Michelle Obama
"Listen to women. Listen to what they're saying. We've seen that when we listen to them, they're speaking loudly and they're speaking at the ballot box." -Tim Walz
“Standing here as my mother’s daughter, and my daughter’s mother, I’m so happy this day has come. Happy for grandmothers and little girls and everyone in between. Happy for boys and men because when any barrier falls in America, it clears the way for everyone. When there are no ceilings, the sky is the limit. So let’s keep going until every one of the 161 million women and girls across America has the opportunities she deserves to have.” -Hillary Clinton
“When a house is on fire, we don’t ask whose house it is. If the place happens to belong to a childless cat lady, well, we try to get that cat out too.” -Oprah Winfrey
“I really do believe that this is the convention of the woman. For so long, we’ve just been told to sit down and shut up. And we’re not going to sit down and shut up anymore.” -Sarah Godlewski, Wisconsin’s secretary of state
This moment when the crowd goes wild for Elizabeth Warren, the first recent presidential candidate I really felt was willing to fight for women and kids (is it me or does the roar sound mostly like the roar of women??)
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Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser“Kamala will take on the Wall Street firms that buy up millions of houses and apartments and then jack up the rent…she’ll take on corporate monopolies that rip off consumers and billionaires who don’t pay taxes, and she’ll take on right-wing extremists who think they should decide who has access to abortion or IVF. There it is, groceries, gas, housing, healthcare taxes, abortion. Trust Donald Trump and JD fans to look out for your family. Shoot, I wouldn’t let those guys. I wouldn’t trust them to move my couch.” -Elizabeth Warren
“There is nothing pro-family about abortion bans. There is nothing pro-life about letting women suffer and even die.” -Kate Cox
“Couples just trying to grow their family…cut off in the middle of IVF treatments. Children who have survived sexual assault, potentially forced to carry the pregnancy to term. This is what is happening in our country. Because of Donald Trump. And. Get this, he plans to create a National Anti-Abortion Coordinator. And force states to report on women’s miscarriages and abortions. Simply put. They are. Out. Of. Their. Minds.” -Kamala Harris
“One must ask: Why exactly is it that they don’t trust women? Well. We. trust. women. And when Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom, as President of the United States, I will proudly sign it into. law.” -Kamala Harris
“Most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward. We will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth. If we bankrupt a business or choke in a crisis, we don’t get a second, third or fourth chance. If things don’t go our way, we don’t have the luxury of whining or cheating others to get further ahead. No….We put our heads down. We get to work. In America, we do something.” -Michelle Obama
And of course, the best quote of the night, remixed:
For more 2024 election commentary, check out these posts
Our summer discount on annual subscriptions for $39 (that’s only $3.25 a month!) ends MONDAY on Labor Day. Paid subscribers get access to subscriber chats, the full archives, thoughtful essays and interviews, and book club perks.
If you’re feeling fired up right now about female-forward writing and journalism, this is the lowest price we will offer this year. The upcoming months will be intense, but we can get through it together. Paid subscribers get access to subscriber chats, our full archive of interviews and thoughtful essays, and full access to book club and other paid content that helps keep us sane in these times.
This is the lowest price that we will offer this year!
Why, in the name of god and goddesses, does the Times continue to give air to Ross Douthat? DM me if you want to start a petition (only half joking).
Yes what is going on with the NYT?! Hot mess over there.
I have to admit that I hate-read both Douthat and David French. Also I have to say that when I look around when I am out and about, it looks like there is no shortage of kids so I don't get why weirdos like Peter Thiel and his lapdog JD are in a sweat about running out of them. I am so thrilled about Kamala Harris and I believe she will be our next president. Michelle Obama was absolutely on point with everything she said in her speech - I have always admired her. I am retired and my kids are grown and gone their own ways, but I am so glad that you and Emily Taylor and all the others who write about these issues are getting them out into the public consciousness. I came of age as women got the right to have credit cards in their own name, as well as the right to abortion, so I have watched all these things unfold over my lifetime.