We’ve never had a POTUS and FLOTUS like the Obama’s before, and we’ve never had a Trump before. Two very different presidencies, one wrought with bigotry, racism and rampant white supremacy, and scandal, the other full of hope, unity and service. Former FLOTUS Michelle Obama says we need to pay attention to who is qualified in the next presidential election.
“I implored people to focus and think about what it takes to be commander-in-chief,” Obama told Robin Roberts in a “20/20” interview, in reference to women electing a misogynist in 2016 instead of a qualified female candidate.
She expressed the importance of voting, but went beyond that to describe the kind of person qualified to run this country.
“The commander in chief needs to have discipline, and read, and be knowledgeable. You need to know history, you need to be careful with your words,” she said.
“I’m going to be looking to see who handles themselves and each other with dignity and respect so that by the time people get to the general (election), people aren’t beat up and battered,” the former first lady, who said she will not run for president, stressed.
“I think this (Democratic nomination) is open to any and everybody who has the courage to step up and serve.”
She even joked that at this point, anyone is qualified to run for president —even her daughter.
“I think, at this point, everybody’s qualified and everyone should run,” she said on Good Morning America “I might even tap (her younger daughter) Sasha!”
.@MichelleObama on whether Hillary Clinton should run for president in 2020: “I think at this point everybody is qualified and everybody should run. I might even tap Sasha!” https://t.co/E6lGKfK6oR pic.twitter.com/Axrvs7SDZQ
— Good Morning America (@GMA) November 13, 2018
Obama and her husband were about service before, during and after the presidency.
Candidates like Trump, drunk with power, have a past, present, and future that mirror that intoxication.
Coming off midterms there are questions about what to do next — investigations of Trump, what lessons did we learn articles, predictions of the 2020 election, but getting back to what a leader, a public servant of this country is supposed to do — lead by serving its people — is a message that voters can review candidate criteria with.
“It’s amazing to me that we still have to tell people about the importance of voting,” she said. “People have to be educated, they have to be focused on the issues and they have to go to the polls if they want their politics to reflect their values.”
Obama explained, “Where I’m at right now is that we should see anybody who feels the passion to get in this race, we need them in there. Let’s see who wants to roll up their sleeves and get in the race. That’s what the primary process is for.”
In looking at Trump’s record, most of his decisions have been made to serve himself. His record of cheating employees out of money, not paying taxes, discriminating against Blacks in terms of who could claim residency in his buildings, misogynistic comments, scandals around payoffs for affairs — none of it shows signs of service.
Obama writes in her new memoir “Becoming” how Trump’s division and bigoted messaging tactics to garner a movement to propel his campaign impacted her own family’s safety:
“The whole [birther] thing was crazy and mean-spirited, of course, its underlying bigotry and xenophobia hardly concealed. But it was also dangerous, deliberately meant to stir up the wingnuts and kooks.”
In current times, his decisions in the White House usually involve a lot of divisive words to spark attention from white supremacists, “look what I did” moments on twitter for validation, and little about what the country needs, but instead what the country should be afraid of.
And that is not why you get the job in the first place.
