Michelle Obama Scolds Michigan: It's Not Funny

Laugh not, mortals...

Michelle Obama in Kalamazoo last night:

To anyone out there thinking about sitting out this election or voting for Donald Trump or a third party candidate in protest because you’re fed up, let me warn you, your rage does not exist in a vacuum… To the women listening, we have every right to demand that the men in our lives do better by us. We have to use our voices to make these choices clear to the men that we love. Our lives are worth more than their anger and disappointment.

This is a fresh take on the “Throw the bums out!” speech, directed not at politicians, but the layabout men stretched on the couches of pious Democrats while planning on not voting, or voting for Trump, or even (gasp!) voting Green. It’s time for women to confront such villains and “make these choices clear,” Obama seethed. Oddly, she later also noted, “your vote is a private matter regardless of the political views of your partner,” and “you get to… cast your vote for yourself and the women in your life.”

One assumes this is not a message she’d like to reach the ears of the men her husband called “the brothers” in Pittsburgh. Barack Obama on October 8th decided to “speak some truths” to black men, chiding, “Women in our lives have been getting our backs this entire time… And you’re thinking about sitting out?” He did not say, though it might have been funny: “And guys, remember, voting is a private matter. If she asks, tell her of course you voted for Kamala. Then give her the I’m Mr. Hope face. You know what I’m talking about, right, fellas? This one, remember?”

That is a joke, though, and as Michelle made clear last night, jokes are part of the problem: