CHICAGO —
Barack and Michelle Obama resurfaced, with a vengeance.
Doug Emhoff, the nation’s second gentleman, turned on the goofy charm.
A number of rhetorical torches were passed.
With Joe Biden thanked and sent packing, the second night of the Democratic National Convention swung its full attention to Kamala Harris, with a symbolic roll-call vote and fusillade of attacks on Donald Trump.
Leading the assault were the former president and his wife, who seemed to release years of pent-up passion in a single volcanic speech.
Columnists Mark Z. Barabak and Anita Chabria, wearing flammable suits, took it all in and had these observations from Chicago.
Barabak: Eight years ago, when Democrats gathered to nominate Hillary Clinton, then-First Lady Michelle Obama famously urged them to rise above the ugliness of the race against the vitriolic Trump.
Forget all that. There was not a speck of “they-go-low-we-go-high” restraint when Obama took the stage Tuesday night in her hometown.
“For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to make people fear us,” she said of herself and her husband. “His limited and narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hard-working, highly educated, successful people who also happened to be Black.”
She spoke with the force of a spring uncoiled and the determination of a balled-up fist.
“Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs?’” Obama said, using Trump’s clueless locution. “It’s his 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.”
The roar inside the convention hall would have blown the roof off had it not been so firmly fastened.
Chabria: What we saw with Michelle and Barack’s speeches was the difference between 2020 and 2024 — not so much an evolution of the Obamas but an evolution of America.
As Barack Obama pointed out, it has been 16 years since he stood in front of the Democratic National Convention to accept the nomination.
In many ways that are ugly and retrograde, the rise of the MAGA wing of the Republican Party was a response to his presidency, the bubbling up of a semi-latent but potent racism that lurked just beneath our surface and which ultimately was ignited at the thought of Black and brown Americans gaining political equality.
That shocked some of us, and was old news to many others. But it’s worth noting that even as recently as a few months ago, there was backroom chatter that a Black/Asian American woman had no chance of being elected president.
But here we are, deep inside the moment that is the ultimate reckoning for the rise of MAGA. I’ve said it before: This election is as much about our ideals and values as it is the candidates.
As Barack Obama said, “Donald Trump wants us to think that this country is hopelessly divided between us and them; between the real Americans who support him and the outsiders who don’t. And he wants you to think that you’ll be richer and safer if you just give him the power to put those ‘other’ people back in their place.”
Harris’ campaign slogan — “We are not going back” — is directly addressing that.
Your thoughts?
Barabak: When his turn came, the former president was more emotionally restrained, in keeping with his character, but no less fierce.
He mocked Trump as “a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago.”
He depicted Trump as a has-been, his shtick grown old, and the annoying neighbor who constantly keeps his leaf blower running. (Though, in Trump’s case, it’s his mouth.)
“From a neighbor, that’s exhausting,” Obama said. “From a president, it’s just dangerous.”
Michelle Obama confronted Trump with molten anger. The former president filleted him with cool disdain.
He even made a Freudian reference to Trump’s “weird obsession with crowd sizes,” holding his hands just a few inches apart and leaving the audience to infer the rest.
Chabria: I’m not sure how much was left to infer. That off-color joke to me was in tune with the Harris campaign, putting joy and laughter into something serious.
As much as the Obamas brought the fire, they also brought hope. Michelle Obama said Harris was “a tribute to her mother, to my mother, and to your mother too.”
Michelle, in particular, focused a lot of her time on reminding us that the Trumps of the world are the exception, not the rule, and that most of us “don’t get to change the rules so we always win.”
She also cautioned against railing against good because it’s not perfect — something Democrats have long been prone to — and to avoid a “Goldilocks complex about whether everything is just right.”
You saw that same duality in Barack Obama’s speech.
Barabak: It was almost as though the former president delivered two speeches.
There was the part where he excoriated Trump. Then there were long sections that recalled that transcendent speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, which launched his meteoric rise as he appealed to voters’ better nature.
Our politics have grown so rancorous and corrosive, Obama said, with each side trying to outshout the other, that many Americans have tuned out, leaving the extremes to drive a deeper wedge through the country.
Obama called for more kindness and grace, saying “as much as any policy or program” what many yearn for is a country where people and politicians “work together and help each other.”
It was, to use an old Obama word, audacious to follow his scathing attacks on Trump with such a plea. But, the former president suggested, that turn away from the politics of anger, division and hate is what the choice in November is all about.
And then there was the second gentleman, as he is formally known, Doug Emhoff.
Chabria: Emhoff is a weapon of cuteness and light, like a “My Little Pony” proving friendship is magic. Don’t underestimate this guy as goofy. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
He’s been charged with making Harris likable and understandable, and he delivered last night with a speech that went all the way through from their first blind date to Harris’ dedication and love as a stepmom.
“Her empathy is her strength,” he told the crowd.
Doug makes me understand Harris’ choice of Tim Walz as her running mate. Both share a complete comfort with powerful women, and both are comfortable in their own skin.
Emhoff is the molecular opposite of JD Vance, the GOP vice presidential nominee. I fear if you ever put them in the same room it would be like a particle and its antiparticle colliding.
Barabak: There was something endearing about Emhoff’s breezy delivery and the way he seemed to treat his big speech almost as a lark. He was earnest and relatable in a way few political figures are.
“You know that laugh,” he said of his wife’s great, gusting guffaw, which critics have sought to weaponize. He seemed genuinely puzzled. “I love that laugh!”
Emhoff may be in an unconventional role, as the nation’s first second gentleman. But he performed Tuesday night’s assigned task — humanizing his more famous and powerful spouse — like an old pro.
