RIP to ‘When They Go Low, We Go High’

At the DNC Tuesday night, Michelle Obama rhetorically dispatched with a phrase she introduced into the public consciousness in 2016.

By Susan Rinkunas  |  August 21, 2024 | 1:26am
Photo: Getty Images Politics Democratic National Convention
RIP to ‘When They Go Low, We Go High’

CHICAGO — At the Democratic National Convention in 2016, Michelle Obama famously told the audience that she and her husband had a specific way of explaining to their daughters how they should respond to bullies. “When someone is cruel, or acts like a bully, you don’t stoop to their level—no, our motto is, when they go low, we go high,” she said in Philadelphia, adding, “Barack and I take that same approach to our jobs as president and first Lady, because we know that our words and actions matter not just to our girls, but to children across this country.”

This was, I must note, when she was still the sitting first lady—the first Black woman in the role—and someone who the right continually attacked for being “angry.” She made this speech in late July 2016, at a time when many people thought then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was a shoo-in to beat Donald Trump, the epitome of a bully. It was a decent saying for a time before it felt like the country was standing at the door of fascism.

Now, it’s eight years later, Michelle isn’t living in the White House, she appears to be, well, unburdened by what has been. In Chicago on Tuesday, the former first lady gave an absolute barn burner of a speech that righteously defended Vice President Kamala Harris and skewered Trump.

The first moment that had me thinking “we go high found dead in a ditch,” was when she spun the right-wing concept of affirmative action on its head by noting that inheriting a fortune is its own leg up. Here’s a clip:

She kept going:

“Unfortunately, we know what comes next. Folks are going to do everything they can to distort her truth. 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 hardworking, highly educated, successful people who happened to be Black. I wanna know, who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those Black jobs?”

She noted that Republicans’ positions of stripping away abortion care, banning books, and demonizing people for who they love “only makes us small.” Then she wound up: “And let me tell you, going small is never the answer. Going small is the opposite of what we teach our children. Going small is petty. It’s unhealthy. And quite frankly, it’s unpresidential.”

And while she didn’t explicitly reference her former motto, the implication was very obvious to people watching.

Someone even put Kendrick Lamar’s Drake diss track “Meet the Grahams” over one section of her speech:

Importantly, she also noted that the right is going to continue to attack Harris so people must be prepared to push back and not give into cynicism. I just need to print this whole thing:

But there are still so many people who are desperate for a different outcome, who are ready to question and criticize every move Kamala makes, who are eager to spread those lies, who don’t want to vote for a woman, who will continue to prioritize building their wealth over ensuring everyone has enough.

No matter how good we feel tonight or tomorrow or the next day, this is still going to be an uphill battle. So we cannot be our own worst enemies. No, the minute something goes wrong, the minute a lie takes hold, we cannot start wringing our hands.

We cannot get a Goldilocks complex about whether everything is just right. We cannot indulge our anxieties about whether this country will elect someone like Kamala instead of doing everything we can to get someone like Kamala elected.

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