On August 20, 2024 I was looking forward to watching former president Barack Obama speak at the Democratic National Convention. He gave an excellent speech, and so did his wife Michelle who preceded him (a wonderful tag team).
You can watch the full speech by Michelle here at PBS News and read a transcript here at TIME. And you can watch the full speech by Barack here at PBS News and read a transcript here at TIME.
NBC news has a three-minute excerpt video where Barack Obama calls Trump a “78-year-old-billionaire” with a leaf blower outside America’s window. Pay attention to his delivery, particularly his hand gestures for conspiracy theories and crowd sizes. The speechwriting is excellent:
“…. And as we gather here tonight, the people who will decide this election are asking a very simple question: Who will fight for me? Who’s thinking about my future, my children’s future, about our future together.
One thing is certain: Donald Trump is not losing sleep over that question. 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. 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. There’s the childish nicknames, the crazy conspiracy theories, this weird obsession with crowd sizes.
It just goes on and on. The other day, I heard someone compare Trump to the neighbor who keeps running his leaf blower outside your window every minute of every day. Now, from a neighbor, that’s exhausting From a President, it’s just dangerous.
The truth is, Donald Trump sees power as nothing more than a means to his end. He wants the middle class to pay the price for another huge tax cut that would mostly help him and his rich friends. He killed a bipartisan immigration deal written in part by one of the most conservative Republicans in Congress that would’ve helped secure our southern border, because he thought trying to actually solve the problem would hurt his campaign. He doesn’t -
[Crowd boos.] Do not boo, vote.
He doesn’t seem to care if more women lose their reproductive freedom, since it won’t affect his life. And most of all, Donald Trump wants us to think that this country is hopelessly divided: between us and them, between the real Americans who – of course- support him and the outsiders who don’t. And he wants you to think that you’ll be richer and safer if you will just give him the power to put those other people back in their place. It is one of the oldest tricks in politics, from a guy whose act has – let’s face it – gotten pretty stale.
We do not need four more years of bluster and bumbling and chaos. We have seen that movie before, and we all know that the sequel is usually worse.
America’s ready for a new chapter. America’s ready for a better story. We are ready for a President Kamala Harris.”
The image of a man with a backpack leaf blower was adapted from one at Wikimedia Commons.
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