Her “Let’s Move!” campaign combatti

Her “Let’s Move!” campaign combatting childhood obesity, her advocacy for military families, and her work on behalf of women’s rights and access to higher education for young people have been aimed at improving the lives of vulnerable populations. Michelle Obama has also managed to articulate the fears and, crucially, embody the hopes felt by millions of Americans. Coming across in the tradition of Eleanor Roosevelt, she has communicated her worries as a mother who understands the pain and daily concerns of ordinary Americans who have come to identify with the woman who is living in the White House. In her widely praised 2016 convention address, she candidly described the challenge of watching her young daughters go off to school “into those black SUVs with all those big men with guns. And I saw their little faces pressed up against the window, and the only thing I could think was, ‘What have we done?’ See, because at that moment, I realized that our time in the White House would form the foundation for who they would become, and how well we managed this experience could truly make or break them.”

This bond with the public has been built, as Curtin observes, over time. Moreover, as Muncy points out, Michelle Obama’s “when they go low, we go high” line is “setting a standard for all political activists baffled and shaken by the shocking, indeed downright depraved, level of so much current political rhetoric. She is an antiracist feminist leader of the first rank, a leader who understands how racial justice, gender justice, environmentalism and nutrition, for instance, are all connected.”

Michelle Obama has also insisted that her faith in America, despite its imperfections, remains unbroken. She has invoked the tradition of the suffrage movement, the civil rights movement and other movements that have sought to hold the nation to the standard set forth in the declaration that all people “are created equal.” For instance, she was also able to respond to the onslaught of racist attacks on the nation’s first African-American president with grace and dignity. Every day, she said at this year’s Democratic convention, “we try to guide and protect our girls through the challenges of this unusual life in the spotlight — how we urge them to ignore those who question their father’s citizenship or faith. How we insist that the hateful language they hear from public figures on TV does not represent the true spirit of this country. How we explain that when someone is cruel, or acts like a bully, you don’t stoop to their level.” Her own story, along with the causes and people she has championed, is yoked to American ideals of social equality, individual worth and expansive notions of rights and opportunity and has won over a sizable majority of the public.

Most of this year’s campaign hasn’t been focused on Michelle Obama, of course. Rather, it has been consumed with coverage of Donald Trump’s derogatory comments toward women, people of color and the disabled (to name a few of his favorite targets). Trump has caused progressives (and some conservatives) to despair that in 2016 the country has moved backward, into a darker time. Such despondency, however, has been offset to a degree by the demonstration of wisdom, equality and decency exemplified by Michelle Obama. The first lady has championed social equality and ultimately made the United States more keenly aware of its legacies of gender and racial discrimination. America is more just in 2016 than it was before she became first lady.