Michelle Obama's speech to the Democratic convention

Former First Ly's Michelle Obama's speech to Democratic National Convention, as brocast Aug. 17, 2020:

Good evening, everyone. It’s a hard time, and everyone’s feeling it in different ways. And I kw a lot of folks are reluctant to tune into a political convention right w or to politics in general. Believe me, I get that. But I am here tonight because I love this country with all my heart, and it pains me to see so many people hurting.

I’ve met so many of you. I’ve heard your stories. And through you, I have seen this country’s promise. And thanks to so many who came before me, thanks to ir toil and sweat and blood, I’ve been able to live that promise myself.

That’s story of America. All those folks who sacrificed and overcame so much in ir own times because y wanted something more, something better for ir kids.

re’s a lot of beauty in that story. re’s a lot of pain in it, too, a lot of struggle and injustice and work left to do. And who we choose as our president in this election will determine wher or t we hor that struggle and chip away at that injustice and keep alive very possibility of finishing that work.

I am one of a handful of people living today who have seen firsthand immense weight and awesome power of presidency. And let me once again tell you this: job is hard. It requires clear-heed judgment, a mastery of complex and competing issues, a devotion to facts and history, a moral compass, and an ability to listen — and an abiding belief that each of 330,000,000 lives in this country has meaning and worth.

A president’s words have power to move markets. y can start wars or broker peace. y can summon our better angels or awaken our worst instincts. You simply cant fake your way through this job.

As I’ve said before, being president doesn’t change who you are; it reveals who you are. Well, a presidential election can reveal who we are, too. And four years ago, too many people chose to believe that ir votes didn’t matter. Maybe y were fed up. Maybe y thought outcome wouldn’t be close. Maybe barriers felt too steep. Whatever reason, in end, those choices sent someone to Oval Office who lost national popular vote by nearly 3,000,000 votes.

In one of states that determined outcome, winning margin averd out to just two votes per precinct — two votes. And we’ve all been living with consequences.

When my husband left office with Joe Biden at his side, we h a record-breaking stretch of job creation. We’d secured right to health care for 20,000,000 people. We were respected around world, rallying our allies to confront climate change. And our leers h worked hand-in-hand with scientists to help prevent an Ebola outbreak from becoming a global pandemic.

Four years later, state of this nation is very different. More than 150,000 people have died, and our ecomy is in shambles because of a virus that this president downplayed for too long. It has left millions of people jobless. Too many have lost ir health care; too many are struggling to take care of basic necessities like food and rent; too many communities have been left in lurch to grapple with wher and how to open our schools safely. Internationally, we’ve turned our back, t just on agreements forged by my husband, but on alliances championed by presidents like Reagan and Eisenhower.

And here at home, as George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and a never-ending list of incent people of color continue to be murdered, stating simple fact that a Black life matters is still met with derision from nation’s highest office.

Because whenever we look to this White House for some leership or consolation or any semblance of steiness, what we get inste is chaos, division and a total and utter lack of empathy.

Empathy: That’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. ability to walk in someone else’s shoes; recognition that someone else’s experience has value, too. Most of us practice this without a second thought. If we see someone suffering or struggling, we don’t stand in judgment. We reach out because, “re, but for grace of God, go I.” It is t a hard concept to grasp. It’s what we teach our children.

And like so many of you, Barack and I have tried our best to instill in our girls a strong moral foundation to carry forward values that our parents and grandparents poured into us. But right w, kids in this country are seeing what happens when we stop requiring empathy of one ar. y’re looking around wondering if we’ve been lying to m this whole time about who we are and what we truly value.

y see people shouting in grocery stores, unwilling to wear a mask to keep us all safe. y see people calling police on folks minding ir own business just because of color of ir skin. y see an entitlement that says only certain people belong here, that greed is good, and winning is everything because as long as you come out on top, it doesn’t matter what happens to everyone else. And y see what happens when that lack of empathy is ginned up into outright disdain.

y see our leers labeling fellow citizens enemies of state while emboldening torch-bearing white supremacists. y watch in horror as children are torn from ir families and thrown into cs, and pepper spray and rubber bullets are used on peaceful protestors for a photo-op.

Sly, this is America that is on display for next generation. A nation that’s underperforming t simply on matters of policy but on matters of character. And that’s t just disappointing; it’s downright infuriating, because I kw goodness and grace that is out re in households and neighborhoods all across this nation.

And I kw that regardless of our race, , religion, or politics, when we close out ise and fear and truly open our hearts, we kw that what’s going on in this country is just t right. This is t who we want to be.

So what do we do w? What’s our strategy? Over past four years, a lot of people have asked me, “When ors are going so low, does going high still really work?” My answer: going high is only thing that works, because when we go low, when we use those same tactics of degring and dehumanizing ors, we just become part of ugly ise that’s drowning out everything else. We degre ourselves. We degre very causes for which we fight.

But let’s be clear: going high does t mean putting on a smile and saying nice things when confronted by viciousness and cruelty. Going high means taking harder path. It means scraping and clawing our way to that mountain top. Going high means standing fierce against hatred while remembering that we are one nation under God, and if we want to survive, we’ve got to find a way to live toger and work toger across our differences.

And going high means unlocking shackles of lies and mistrust with only thing that can truly set us free: cold hard truth.

So let me be as honest and clear as I possibly can. Donald Trump is wrong president for our country. He has h more than eugh time to prove that he can do job, but he is clearly in over his he. He cant meet this moment. He simply cant be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is.

w, I understand that my mess won’t be heard by some people. We live in a nation that is deeply divided, and I am a Black woman speaking at Democratic Convention. But eugh of you kw me by w. You kw that I tell you exactly what I’m feeling. You kw I hate politics. But you also kw that I care about this nation. You kw how much I care about all of our children.

So if you take one thing from my words tonight, it is this: if you think things cant possibly get worse, trust me, y can; and y will if we don’t make a change in this election. If we have any hope of ending this chaos, we have got to vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it.

I kw Joe. He is a profoundly decent man, guided by faith. He was a terrific vice president. He kws what it takes to rescue an ecomy, beat back a pandemic, and le our country. And he listens. He will tell truth and trust science. He will make smart plans and man a good team. And he will govern as someone who’s lived a life that rest of us can recognize.

When he was a kid, Joe’s far lost his job. When he was a young senator, Joe lost his wife and his baby daughter. And when he was vice president, he lost his beloved son. So Joe kws anguish of sitting at a table with an empty chair, which is why he gives his time so freely to grieving parents. Joe kws what it’s like to struggle, which is why he gives his personal phone number to kids overcoming a stutter of ir own.

His life is a testament to getting back up, and he is going to channel that same grit and passion to pick us all up, to help us heal and guide us forward.

w, Joe is t perfect. And he’d be first to tell you that. But re is perfect candidate, perfect president. And his ability to learn and grow — we find in that kind of humility and maturity that so many of us yearn for right w. Because Joe Biden has served this nation his entire life without ever losing sight of who he is; but more than that, he has never lost sight of who we are, all of us.

Joe Biden wants all of our kids to go to a good school, see a doctor when y’re sick, live on a healthy planet. And he’s got plans to make all of that happen. Joe Biden wants all of our kids, matter what y look like, to be able to walk out door without worrying about being harassed or arrested or killed. He wants all of our kids to be able to go to a movie or a math class without being afraid of getting shot. He wants all our kids to grow up with leers who won’t just serve mselves and ir wealthy peers but will provide a safety net for people facing hard times.

And if we want a chance to pursue any of se goals, any of se most basic requirements for a functioning society, we have to vote for Joe Biden in numbers that cant be igred. Because right w, folks who kw y cant win fair and square at ballot box are doing everything y can to stop us from voting. y’re closing down polling places in mirity neighborhoods. y’re purging voter rolls. y’re sending people out to intimidate voters, and y’re lying about security of our ballots. se tactics are t new.

But this is t time to withhold our votes in protest or play games with candidates who have chance of winning. We have got to vote like we did in 2008 and 2012. We’ve got to show up with same level of passion and hope for Joe Biden. We’ve got to vote early, in person if we can. We’ve got to request our mail-in ballots right w, tonight, and send m back immediately and follow-up to make sure y’re received. And n, make sure our friends and families do same.

We have got to grab our comfortable shoes, put on our masks, pack a brown bag dinner and maybe breakfast too, because we’ve got to be willing to stand in line all night if we have to.

Look, we have alrey sacrificed so much this year. So many of you are alrey going that extra mile. Even when you’re exhausted, you’re mustering up unimaginable cour to put on those scrubs and give our loved ones a fighting chance. Even when you’re anxious, you’re delivering those packs, stocking those shelves, and doing all that essential work so that all of us can keep moving forward.

Even when it all feels so overwhelming, working parents are somehow piecing it all toger without child care. Teachers are getting creative so that our kids can still learn and grow. Our young people are desperately fighting to pursue ir dreams.

And when horrors of systemic racism shook our country and our consciences, millions of Americans of every , every background rose up to march for each or, crying out for justice and progress.

This is who we still are: compassionate, resilient, decent people whose fortunes are bound up with one ar. And it is well past time for our leers to once again reflect our truth.

So, it is up to us to d our voices and our votes to course of history, echoing heroes like John Lewis who said, “When you see something that is t right, you must say something. You must do something.” That is truest form of empathy: t just feeling, but doing; t just for ourselves or our kids, but for everyone, for all our kids.

And if we want to keep possibility of progress alive in our time, if we want to be able to look our children in eye after this election, we have got to reassert our place in American history. And we have got to do everything we can to elect my friend, Joe Biden, as next president of United States.

Thank you all. God bless.

(Im credit: AP)