While not as entertaining (albeit from a bias perspective), silly, and even stimulating as their late-night proceedings in the immediate aftermath of night one of the 2016 Democratic National Convention, MSNBC still provided a few notable moments in Tuesday’s 1:00 a.m. Eastern hour after opening night of the 2020 confab.
In the first segment, host Ari Melber’s panelists hailed former First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech for having sternly condemned and rebuked Americans for not only putting Donald Trump in office, but for causing rampant divisions and warning of dire consequences if they voted incorrectly.
Former SiriusXM host Mark Thompson remarked that Obama sounded like a disappointed or upset “black woman or black mother” who would often use the phrase “don’t let me have to” before rendering “the execution of the thing that we don't want to let them have to do.”
Thompson explained it meant Obama “admonished us” and did so to ensure Americans voted for Joe Biden:
She said do not not vote. Do not vote for someone who has no chance of winning. Don't let me have to put on my comfortable shoes and all of us stand outside all day and all night to vote. Don't let me have to pack a lunch and a breakfast if I have to stay out all night because if that's necessary, that's just what I'll do and Michelle Obama made that very plain tonight.
University of Texas professor and fellow frequent MSNBC guest Victoria DeFrancesco Soto went even further: “Michelle Obama held up a mirror to the nation, and she said, look, look at the division that has been sowed in this country.”
After citing examples of Americans fighting in grocery stores, some refusing to wear masks, and vague claims about people being told in restaurants to go back to where they came from, DeFrancesco Soto expanded on her praise for Obama's scolding:
Divisions in terms of race, divisions in terms of ideology, so what I saw tonight was Michelle Obama saying stop and look at what we've become as a nation and we cannot continue to spiral in this direction. And in terms of what it takes to stop that spiral, it's that hard work, the packing the lunch, the getting ready, being prepared, so she's letting us know, it's going to be extremely hard. That's the mother in her talking, to the previous guest's point. So if we want to stop what we've been seeing, it's on us to do it. It's the hard work, and it's not — it's going to be on us because we are the electors and she's pointing the finger at the responsibility of us, the voter.
Fordham University professor Christina Greer made sure the segment wasn't without some bald-faced lies, such as the claim that “the U.S. Postal Service has been defunded” (click “expand”):
I think it’s just — it’s so incredibly powerful because we’ve already seen the President try to frame November 3rd in such a way where if he is not the victor, then there is automatically voter fraud that has occurred and so what Michelle Obama has done is give Democrats a plan. The plan is apply for your ballot this evening. We know that boards of elections are going to be overwhelmed, we know that the U.S. Postal Service has been defunded, and we've seen what the President and his Postmaster General have been doing across the country for the past few weeks, and it probably won’t let up. There will be a few places where strategically they'll say, we'll stand back.
But we know that the President is on the defensive, because he has failed the American people. We're at 160,000 Americans who have died and counting. We have 40 million unemployed Americans and counting. We have parents who do not know what will happen with their children or their college-age children because of the President's failure. So Michelle Obama not only laid that out, but she's telling us we must vote as though our lives depend on it. Everyone keeps saying that 2020 is the election of — for our lives, but realistically, a colleague of mine, Rebecca Katz, said 2016 was the election of our lives, and we blew it and we have an opportunity to save democracy at the last moment with the 2020 election, and if we don't do it, we don't really know what’s going to happen moving forward, nationally or internationally.
MSNBC thanking Michelle Obama for trashing the American people a la Jonathan Gruber was brought to you by advertisers such as ADT, Advance Auto Parts, and Mercedes-Benz. Follow the links to the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.
To see the relevant MSNBC transcript from August 18, click “expand.”
MSNBC’s Decision 2020: Democratic National Convention
August 18, 2020
1:04 a.m. EasternMARK THOMPSON: Well, I think Michelle Obama spoke to us, as she said, as she describes herself, as a black woman tonight. She even says she doesn't like politics, and that was important, because it reminds me of something Dr. Dorothy Hite said. She said that African women can’t often do what they want to do — African-American women, but they do what they have to do and that's what I think Michelle Obama was saying to all of us tonight and I even kind of heard the voice of a — of a black mother, many will relate to what I'm about to say, when a black woman or black mother says, don't let me have to, and when that is said, it's usually followed by the execution of the thing that we don't want to let them have to do and so she admonished us. She said do not not vote. Do not vote for someone who has no chance of winning. Don't let me have to put on my comfortable shoes and all of us stand outside all day and all night to vote. Don't let me have to pack a lunch and a breakfast if I have to stay out all night because if that's necessary, that's just what I'll do and Michelle Obama made that very plain tonight.
ARI MELBER: Victoria?
VICTORIA DEFRANCESCO SOTO: Michelle Obama held up a mirror to the nation, and she said, look, look at the division that has been sowed in this country. For me, one of the most graphic images was how we're fighting each other in grocery stores. You know, over the past couple of years, Ari, we've seen that most recently because people aren't wearing masks, and people are getting angry and fighting with each other, but we've been seeing it in stores and restaurants when people are speaking Spanish, people are told to go back to where they're from, that they’re not from this country. Divisions in terms of race, divisions in terms of ideology, so what I saw tonight was Michelle Obama saying stop and look at what we've become as a nation and we cannot continue to spiral in this direction. And in terms of what it takes to stop that spiral, it's that hard work, the packing the lunch, the getting ready, being prepared, so she's letting us know, it's going to be extremely hard. That's the mother in her talking, to the previous guest's point. So if we want to stop what we've been seeing, it's on us to do it. It's the hard work, and it's not — it's going to be on us because we are the electors and she's pointing the finger at the responsibility of us, the voter.
MELBER: Christina, all of this comes against the backdrop on an attack on the instruments of the voting itself, the usual spectacle of the Speaker of the House bringing back Congress to deal with this, democracy itself potentially being on the ballot and Michelle Obama spoke to that as well. Take a look
[MICHELLE OBAMA CLIP]
MELBER: Christina?
CHRISTINA GREER: I think it’s just — it’s so incredibly powerful because we’ve already seen the President try to frame November 3rd in such a way where if he is not the victor, then there is automatically voter fraud that has occurred and so what Michelle Obama has done is give Democrats a plan. The plan is apply for your ballot this evening. We know that boards of elections are going to be overwhelmed, we know that the U.S. Postal Service has been defunded, and we've seen what the President and his Postmaster General have been doing across the country for the past few weeks, and it probably won’t let up. There will be a few places where strategically they'll say, we'll stand back, but we know that the President is on the defensive, because he has failed the American people. We're at 160,000 Americans who have died and counting. We have 40 million unemployed Americans and counting. We have parents who do not know what will happen with their children or their college-age children because of the President's failure. So Michelle Obama not only laid that out, but she's telling us we must vote as though our lives depend on it. Everyone keeps saying that 2020 is the election of — for our lives, but realistically, a colleague of mine, Rebecca Katz, said 2016 was the election of our lives, and we blew it and we have an opportunity to save democracy at the last moment with the 2020 election, and if we don't do it, we don't really know what’s going to happen moving forward, nationally or internationally.
MELBER: Well, and you lay it out there and that was an interesting part, Christina, I thought, of the way that Michelle Obama navigated that line, she is something that she’s earned a lot of respect. She’s obviously never gotten to be in a partisan place, so she has wider support across the nation. We see that in the polling, we see that in her book being one of the best-selling books of all time, not just in — among government figures and she walked that line tonight of saying both things can actually get worse, so people, in all sorts of ways, talking about how hard 2020 has been, but she made a direct sort of, I think, a direct argument to Democrats that a second term Trump would be far worse and yet she also found notes of uplift. Mark, I’m curious. I go to you because I've always relied on you for real talk, among our other experts for real talk. Not just being nice, although it's good to be nice and so real talk, this, in some ways, understandably, it didn't have the same frisson or passion or in-person excitement of a traditional convention and maybe that's okay, cause everyone in the country knows what life on Zoom is like, but what was potentially missing, and is it fixable in your view in the coming days, or will it be four days like this where at times tonight as I watched it, it was like and this may be true of both parties' virtual conventions, but it was like there was a lot of air in the room.
THOMPSON: Well, I think people do know about the limitations of Zoom and I heard from friends who maybe felt a little bored or there was a little lull at different points, but I think that some of the real stories overshadowed that, even where there might have been lulls, there were powerful statements from real and everyday Americans. The young woman who lost her father to COVID. Bernie Sanders, I also think was great, making the call for unity. Tonight was important, too because the two personalities — the two individuals who can speak most to millennial voters are Bernie Sanders and Michelle Obama and I think they're going to have to continue to do that. I think it's even more important, Ari, not so much how we improve on the presentation and production of the convention, but what Democrats do post-convention to get the likes of Michelle Obama and Bernie Sanders before millennials throughout social media because I'm going to say this: I've been talking to millennials since the — since — in terms of real talk, I’ve been talking to some millennials, even on the phone or in person since the choice of Kamala Harris, and millennials are being, and especially black millennials, are being targeted for disinformation more than anyone else. And so I’m even more concerned about not in a convention format, but what is done on social media to speak to millennials to let them know what’s really at stake in this election. I think they helped a lot. Bernie Sanders talked about unity and again, Michelle Obama has the greatest moral authority of anyone in public right now, so I think anywhere that might have even been lulls in the programming, she made up for it.
