Donald Trump can't meet this moment, unfit for presidency: Michelle

Prez hits back saying "please explain to her that he would not be in the beautiful White House if it weren't for the job done by her husband Barack Obama"

Democrats opened the most extraordinary presidential nominating convention in recent history on Monday night with a programme that spanned the gamut from socialists to Republicans, from the relatives of George Floyd to family members of those killed by the coronavirus.
 

Truncated and conducted virtually because of the coronavirus crisis, the presentation at times resembled an online awards show, and it offered a vivid illustration of how both the pandemic and widespread opposition to President Trump have upended the country’s politics. Capping the evening was an urgent plea from Michelle Obama, the former first lady, for voters to mobilise in overpowering force to turn Trump out of office and elect the Democratic nominee, Joseph R Biden Jr.
 

“Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country,” she said. “He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment.”
 

Senator Bernie Sanders, speaking before Obama, gave voice to what he described as the historic stakes this November, arguing that “this election is about preserving our democracy” and alluding to his own family’s experience with Nazi Germany. “This is not normal,” he said, “and we must never treat it like it is.”

Kicking off a four-day conclave during which they hope to both win over moderates who are uneasy with Trump’s divisive leadership and energise liberals who are unenthusiastic about their own nominee, Democrats reached for the recent past. They showcased Sanders, the leader of the left and their reigning presidential runner-up; a handful of Republican defectors; and the most popular figure from the previous administration, Michelle Obama.
 

They hailed Biden, the former vice-president, who will formally accept his party’s nomination on Thursday, and his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, and made clear their deep apprehension about the country’s future if Trump were to win a second term. Obama portrayed the Trump era as a gallery of social and political degradation: A government defined by “chaos, division and a total and utter lack of empathy” and guided by the ethos that “greed is good and winning is everything.”

As unlikely as the eclectic lineup of political bedfellows was, stranger still was the spectacle of an entirely virtual convention. Trying to demonstrate more responsible leadership than the incumbent has during a national health emergency, Democrats built their program entirely online.
 

It was far from clear on Monday night whether the Democrats’ makeshift alternative to a traditional convention would generate the kind of political energy that past conclaves provided. Oddly absent from the evening were the basic staples of convention atmospherics: Applause, laughter, chanting and jeering.
 

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