Landing Punches vs Going Low: Michelle Obama on School Lunches

By Stephen Cataldo, 13 May, 2017

Michelle Obama goes high. She goes high while she rips Trump for allowing unhealthy school lunches again.
Her talk on school lunches pulls no punches: I would feel ashamed to be on the receiving end. What specifically does she do to stay clean while landing her punches, while so often progressives wind up just rolling in the dirt with Trump supporters?

  • She calls on all decent people to be above politics. She never blames Republicans as a collective for the outrage — either you want healthy school lunches or not.
  • She sticks to one issue, and is talking about that issue, not talking politics. This is not a list of reasons to not like the other side — which is how Republicans, Democrats and various third parties talk generally about each other. Is Trump a traitor? (Let's find out.)
  • She isn’t talking about Republicans; she is talking about school lunches. What I remember of Hillary Clinton’s speeches, she was generally talking about Trump (electorally ineffective) or his supporters (electoral suicide.)
  • She doesn't demand your loyalty, or choose to be on her side or her team. You can think whatever you want of her, she is talking about whether kids eat healthy. It's not about Trump, Republicans, Democrats or her — it's about kids eating healthy lunches.

This video was posted on Occupy Democrats. If Democrats and allies want to win the next election, we should become more conscious of techniques that let us speak our values with clarity, neither muddling and pretending that nothing so bad is going on, nor sinking to the depths that American politics is mired in. Occupy Democrats is currently mostly shoving Trump's failures in the faces of people who voted for Trump and now no longer feel comfortable with any politicians. There are more effective paths forward; rather than insulting these politicians we can cost them votes and scour them from Washington.