This might be the most powerful, clearly articulated speech of the entire 2016 election and I recommend that everyone watch it. Appearing at a pro-Hillary Clinton rally yesterday in New Hampshire, Michelle Obama delivered impassioned, highly personal remarks on the dangerous normalization of inappropriate behavior towards women that Donald Trump’s campaign has wrought. It moved me.
Obama’s words and impassioned tone are incredibly effective and unmistakably genuine. As a viewer though, you should be mindful of the deft intercutting of audience shots as she speaks; images of rapt audience members—women and young girls, particularly—are strategically interspersed throughout the running time to maximize the impact of her words. They add a powerful, emotionally moving element of relevance to the oratory, but they’re also manipulative in the way that any kind of editing of moving imagery always is. I don’t mean to take away from Obama’s address at all; I just mean to point out that, as authentic as the message is, like everything else in the campaign, this video too makes use of every means at its disposal to sway your opinion.
It’s also interesting to contrast the substance of this speech to the one that Donald Trump delivered immediately afterwards.
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