Former First Lady Michelle Obama steals the show on the second night of the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago: NAJ screen shot

By Glynn Wilson –

Michelle Obama stole the show on the second night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

She delivered a rousing call for Democrats to get behind the campaign of Kamala Harris and work harder than they’ve ever worked before, while also giving Republican candidate Donald Trump, the former president, the tongue lashing of his life.

Former President Barack Obama, the final keynote speaker, is often called the Democratic Party’s greatest living orator. But he had a hard time following his wife, the former First Lady.

“I am the only person stupid enough to speak after Michelle Obama,” the former president joked when he took the stage as the final speaker Tuesday night.

Former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama embrace, then fire up the crowd on the second night of the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago: NAJ screen shot

Obama delivered a rousing yes-we-can speech like the one years ago that vaulted him from obscurity as a one-term Senator from Illinois toward two successful terms in the White House. But after her own reluctant start in politics and public speaking 20 years ago, Michelle has become a great orator in her own right. If she so desired, she could have become the first African-American woman president – and won in a landslide.

Former President Barack Obama fires up the crowd on the second night of the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago: NAJ screen shot

That’s something Donald Trump always feared. Now he will have to contend with another dynamic woman, Kamala Harris, and so far he’s not taking it well.

Not having the budget to travel to Chicago to cover the convention myself this time, I watched online in a mountain campground in Maryland and was in awe even from afar, sharing video clips on Facebook with my friends, fans and followers. We watched and celebrated together, and this also allowed me the time luxury to read some of the best live coverage in the country on the web.

“The his-and-hers marquee convention speeches by the 44th president of the United States and the former first lady fired up the partisan crowd,” the New York Times’ Peter Baker reported from inside the United Center. “Speaking back-to-back over the course of an hour, the Obamas reminded Democrats of a past era of hope and change while electrifying a convention after a ceremonial roll call nominated Vice President Kamala Harris for president and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota for vice president.”

The delegates loved the former president’s speech. But they really, really loved Michelle’s address, and went crazy for her from the minute she took the stage to the music of Stevie Wonder to the end when she introduced her husband.

No wonder Trump has repeatedly expressed a feverish worry over the years that the Democrats would turn to her as their next nominee. He’s often referred to this as some kind of bizarre conspiratorial plot.

From the stage at the United Center she called Trump a product of “the affirmative action of generational wealth,” who nonetheless enjoyed the “grace of failing forward” while moaning that he was somehow a victim. She described him as a racist and misogynist who exploited fears and lies, a huckster and a hatemonger still playing “the same old con game” on America.

“If we bankrupt a business or choke in a crisis, we don’t get a second, third or fourth chance,” she said. “If things don’t go our way, we don’t have the luxury of whining or cheating others to get further ahead. No. We don’t get to change the rules so we always win. If we see a mountain in front of us, we don’t expect there to be an escalator waiting to take us to the top.”

In offering her support for Harris, who would be America’s second Black president if she wins and the first woman in the Oval Office, Mrs. Obama summoned her own grievances about the way Trump regularly attacked her husband along racial lines. The birther lie that Trump relentlessly promoted still burns in the Obama household.

“We know folks are going to do everything they can to distort her truth,” Mrs. Obama said of Harris. “My husband and I sadly know a little something about this. For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to try to make people fear us. See, his limited, narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hard-working, highly educated, successful people – who happened to be Black.”

As the hall erupted in cheers, she added a knowing reference to a recent phrase he used about employment supposedly taken by illegal immigrants: “I want to know,” she said, “who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs’?”

She began her speech by talking about “the contagious power of hope … hope is making a comeback.”

In his address, the former president continued the attack, comparing Trump to “the neighbor who keeps running his leaf blower outside your window every minute of every day,” constantly obsessed about his own needs, his own desires, his own hardships and not those of the people he wants to represent.

“Here’s a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago,” Obama said. “It has been a constant stream of gripes and grievances that’s actually been getting worse now that he’s afraid of losing to Kamala.”

The former president scorned his successor’s fixation with “childish nicknames” and his “crazy conspiracy theories” and “this weird obsession with crowd sizes – it just goes on and on and on,” he said, holding his hands together in a way that implied small masculine proportions.

Former two-term President Barack Obama had the funniest line of the night, something about Trump’s “crowd” size: NAJ screen shot

The crowd went wild.

Full speeches on video:

Other speakers on Tuesday night also went after Trump, some calling him a “five-time draft-dodging coward” who is “rich in only one thing: stupidity.”

According to the Neilson ratings, 20 million viewers tuned in Monday night. More turned in Tuesday night, but the numbers are not out yet.

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