If Hillary Clinton makes history for the second time on November 8th by becoming the first female president of the United States, she will have two people most to thank: Barack and Michelle Obama.
America's first couple delivered the most convincing testimonials for the former US secretary of state – and the most compelling reasons at the Democratic national convention in Philadelphia for why disgruntled Democrats, sceptical independents and Trump-disenfranchised Republicans should put Clinton in the Oval Office.
If Michelle Obama’s appeal was an entreaty to families, her husband prosecuted a more fundamental case: the defence of American democracy.
In Wednesday night’s speech – one of the most passionate and personal of his presidency – Obama used the podium in Philadelphia, the birthplace of the United States, to evoke the principles of the country’s founders and “We, the People” to reject Trump’s dystopian view of America and the Republican nominee’s polarising campaign to capitalise electorally on a divided country.
Arriving on stage to U2's City of Blinding Lights, the Democratic president portrayed the dark rhetoric and sombre themes of Trump's campaign as not just being far removed from Obama's "America I know" but from the "shining city on a hill" vision championed by Ronald Reagan, whom Trump is attempting to channel in winning over mostly angry, white conservative voters. The businessman's campaign slogan, Make America Great Again, is from Reagan's 1980 campaign.
"America is already great," declared Obama. "America is already strong. And I promise you, our strength, our greatness, does not depend on Donald Trump. "
Obama was the showstopper on the convention’s penultimate night, capping three days of glowing testimonials for the Democratic nominee and stinging critiques of the Republican nominee’s business acumen, judgment and character.
It served as a powerful scene-setter for Clinton’s speech last night when the second-time presidential candidate formally accepted the Democratic nomination.
Dark portrait
Obama dismissed Trump’s dark portrait of the United States as a “divided crime scene’ that only he can fix”, railing against his erroneous claims about illegal immigration and crime and his failure to detail any real solutions to the complex problems facing a largely frustrated electorate.
“He’s just offering slogans, and he’s offering fear,” said the president. “He’s betting that if he scares enough people, he might score just enough votes to win this election.”
Obama rejected Trump’s view that he was the only one who could solve the country’s problems.
“He’s selling the American people short,” he said. “We’re not a fragile people. We’re not a frightful people. Our power doesn’t come from some self-declared saviour promising that he alone can restore order as long as we do things his way. We don’t look to be ruled.”
Obama set the perils facing the country under a president Trump alongside some of the biggest tests previously passed by the US.
“That’s why anyone who threatens our values, whether fascists or communists or jihadists or homegrown demagogues, will always fail in the end,” he said.
Trump responded yesterday, tweeting: “President Obama spoke last night about a world that doesn’t exist – 70 per cent of people think our country is going in the wrong direction.”
He later jabbed the president by offering new praise of Russian president Vladimir Putin, describing him as a "better leader" than Obama, just a day after saying that he hoped Russian government spies had successfully hacked Clinton's email – an unprecedented call from a presidential candidate a foreign power to engage in a cyberattack that would influence the outcome of a domestic election.
Trump backtracked later yesterday saying he was being facetious when he said that Russia should hack US computers to locate Clinton’s emails.
“Of course I’m being sarcastic,” he told Fox News.
His reversal came after his remarks caused uproar and reinforced Democratic lines that the businessman was not fit to be president.
The overarching message of Obama’s optimistic address and exhortation to Democrats and others to join Clinton “in the arena” was that his “audacity of hope” trumps Trump’s politics of fear, and that his popular “Yes We Can” slogan has been updated to “Yes We Still Can” but under a new custodian: Hillary Clinton.
Anointed successor
She was “fit” and “ready to be the next commander-in-chief” and he presented his anointed successor as the candidate who understood the country he knew and who was best placed to carry on his progressive agenda. He acknowledged that “she’s made mistakes” but so had he and everyone else.
“I can say with confidence there has never been a man or a woman – not me, not Bill [Clinton], nobody – more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as president of the United States,” said Obama.
The president's shout-out to the Democratic runner-up Bernie Sanders and his vocal, organised and persistent supporters may heal some internal wounds but it will be the Obamas' take-down of Trump, a common adversary for many Democrats, rather than their praise for Clinton that will likely help her most.
