“I know it’s a campaign, but this isn’t about politics. It’s about basic human decency. It’s about right and wrong,” First Lady Michelle Obama said.
If you never listen to another word about the upcoming presidential election, First Lady Michelle Obama’s words are worth lending over your undivided attention.
At a campaign stop for Hillary Clinton supporters in New Hampshire Thursday, Mrs. Obama cut straight to the chase about Donald Trump’s toxic attitude toward women. In a more serious tone outside of her usual campaign speech, Obama began her message by noting, “it would be dishonest and disingenuous to me to just move on to the next thing like this was all just a bad dream.” The intro of her message is in response to Donald Trump’s lewd comments about sexually assaulting women from a 2005 recorded conversation with Billy Bush and other cringe-worthy discussions with Howard Stern, released by The Washington Post.
In round two of the presidential debates, the Republican nominee dismissed his remarks as nothing more than “locker room talk” and said he’d since apologized. The First Lady says, this kind of behavior for anyone wanting to lead the nation cannot be ignored.
“The fact is in this election we have a candidate for president of the United States who over the course of his lifetime and the course of this campaign has said things about women that are so shocking, so demeaning, I simply will not repeat anything here today,” she said. “And last week we saw this candidate actually bragging about sexual assaulting women. I can’t believe I’m saying that a candidate for president of the United States has bragged about sexually assaulting women.”
“The shameful comments about our bodies, the disrespect of our intelligence. The belief you can do anything to a woman? It is cruel. It’s frightening. And the truth is, it hurts. It hurts.” -Michelle Obama
The First Lady strengthened her message by mentioning the strides against sexual harassment made over the years, poignantly referred to the blatant disrespect our mothers and grandmothers were once subjected to, especially in the workplace. Because of Trump, the Mrs. Obama fears we are taking many steps backward.
“So many have worked for so many years against this kind of violence and abuse and disrespect. But here we are in 2016 we’re hearing these exact same things every single day on the campaign trail,” she said. “We are drowning in it. And all of us are doing what women have always done, we’re trying to keep our heads above water. Just trying to get through it. Trying to pretend like this doesn’t really bother us.”
As children see the behavior spewing out from the ugly campaign rhetoric, Obama says she is “worried about the impact this election is having on our boys who are looking for role models of what it means to be a man.”
She went on to say, “Because let’s be very clear, strong men, strong men, men who are truly role models, don’t need to put down women to make themselves feel powerful.”
The First Lady cautioned that every American, despite political affiliation should be troubled and offended by Trump’s laundry list of degrading comments about women. Bringing her message full circle, she urged the importance of voting Hillary Clinton as President in next month’s election.
“In this election, if we turn away from her, if we just stand by and allow her opponent to be elected, then what are we teaching our children about the values they should hold? About the kind of life they should lead. What are we saying?” Mrs. Obama said. “In our hearts, in our hearts, we all know that if we let Hillary’s opponent win this election, then we are sending a clear message to our kids that everything they’re seeing and hearing is perfectly okay. We are validating it. We are endorsing it.”
