Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore is encouraging former First Lady Michelle Obama to throw her hat into the ring for 2020.
Moore, a very vocal critic of President Donald Trump and just about everything else to the right of Leon Trotsky, is admittedly dissatisfied with what he has seen from the bus load of Democrats running for president right now. He has also slammed Democratic Party leadership for allegedly failing to fight President Trump with the same passion the right brings to the fray.
As much as he seems to like Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and the rest of the list that’s too long to count at this point, Moore concedes that these Democrats aren’t “street fighters” the same way Trump is. Michelle Obama, he said, can change this because of her personal popularity.
“Everybody watching this right now knows she is a beloved American and she would go in there and she would beat him,” Moore said during an interview on MSNBC.
Moore sounds like a fangirl here, but there is some data to back this up. After the release of her best-selling memoir Becoming, a YouGov poll found her to be the most admired woman in the United States — beating out Oprah Winfrey. CNBC reports that she, along with Bill Gates, is among the most-admired people in the entire world. Clearly, she has the name recognition required for what is essentially a popularity contest.
The former First Lady also hasn’t been shy in her own critiques of the current President. Unlike Moore, however, she takes a more passive-aggressive approach. Just recently, in response to Trump’s criticism of the city of Baltimore and how generations of Democratic control have coincided with widespread poverty and disease, Obama countered with some classic left-wing virtue signaling.
“On #NationalDanceDay, I’m shouting out the Lethal Ladies, a Baltimore STEP team who I saw perform back in 2017. I’m so proud of you all—and everyone who’s dancing today!” she wrote on Twitter just hours after Trump blasted Baltimore’s Rep. Elijah Cummings for failing to improve his district.
But it isn’t her subtlety that Moore is rooting for. According to the filmmaker, she has the ability to “crush” him.
“She would beat him in the debates, he wouldn’t be able to bully her, he wouldn’t be able to nickname her,” Moore continued. “She takes the stage and she’s so powerful and so good you just look at that and think of course she could win.”
There’s a lot to take away from all of this. While Moore’s assessments on public policy are routinely wrong, he does have a good finger on the pulse of American culture. He correctly predicted that the tide was against the Democrats in 2016, saying that Trump’s election was going to be the biggest “f–k you” to the political establishment in American political history. He was right.
Further to his credit, Moore was one of the few high-profile progressives who refused to become spellbound by the “silver bullet” that was Robert Mueller. Even Trump praised Moore’s hot take after a worn-out Mueller left Capitol Hill following his absurdly uneventful testimony to Congress.
A frail old man, unable to remember things, stumbling, refusing to answer basic questions…I said it in 2017 and Mueller confirmed it today — All you pundits and moderates and lame Dems who told the public to put their faith in the esteemed Robert Mueller — just STFU from now on
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) July 24, 2019
Here’s the thing — while Michelle Obama certainly has the name recognition and the charisma, Moore clearly doesn’t understand that Trump himself is a rejection of all things “Obama.”
Should Michelle decide to run, she will inevitably be compared and contrasted with her husband. Unlike with Hillary Clinton, whose presidential run followed her own independent career in the Senate and as part of the Obama Administration, former First Lady Obama doesn’t have an a record of her own to speak of. As far as most Americans are concerned, her entire public life has been dedicated to stumping for Barack. And that’s the problem — Americans got tired of Barack, which is why the elected his cultural and political opposite to succeed him.
Considering all of this, there are just under two dozen Democrats running for president right now. Exactly none of them have any real charisma — or policy proposals — to speak of. So, what’s one more person for Trump to poke fun at? If nothing else, it could result in another chilling for Democrats that Americans just don’t have the stomach for polished politicians anymore.
