Opinion: RIP To 'When They Go Low, We Go High'

In her Aug. 20 speech at the Democratic National Convention, former first lady Michelle Obama took her "go high" bar down a few notches.

This year’s Democratic National Convention had everything: A hype delegate roll call featuring a surprise Lil Jon performance circa 2002, a subtle dick joke expertly delivered by one former president aimed at another, more Republicans stanning a high-profile Democrat than what was once thought possible, Oprah Winfrey giving a pointed shoutout to childless cat ladies.

But now that the dust has settled and Vice President Kamala Harris has officially become the first Black and South Asian woman to accept a major political party’s nomination for president, the 2024 DNC will be remembered not only as a history-making event but also as the place where “When they go low, we go high” went to die.

Eight years ago, when Democrats gathered in Philadelphia to nominate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as their presidential nominee, then-first lady Michelle Obama uttered those seven ill-fated words — a well-intentioned but ultimately doomed philosophy that seemed to condone Democrats’ long history of bringing a squirt gun to a semiautomatic gun fight.

What followed was certainly not  Michelle Obama’s fault — from normalizing former President Donald Trump’s racist, sexist, xenophobic rhetoric, to historically piss-poor messaging, to lukewarm attempts to fight for reproductive justice and combat anti-abortion lies, the nation’s progressive party has long been of the mindset that securing the moral high ground is enough to win.

Four years of Trump and a scourge of MAGA conspiracy theorists permeating the House and Senate proved that’s not the case.

But that was then. This is now.

Now, instead of placating the hypocritical, ill-intentioned Republican Party under the guise of “partisanship,” Democrats have finally decided to issue full-throated, unapologetic and righteous attacks against a party that has morphed into a shameless cult of personality.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, has correctly identified the GOP as “weird” — a slight that has cut the Republican presidential ticket so deep they’re now on a “we swear we’re extremely normal people” gaslighting tour.

Meanwhile, Harris is consistently touting her experience as a former prosecutor and attorney general while simultaneously calling attention to Trump’s felonies and lawsuits, and the fact that a jury found the braggadocious “pussy-grabbing” candidate liable for sexual abuse and defamation.

“I took on perpetrators of all kinds,” Harris has said at multiple rallies. “I know Donald Trump’s type.”

The campaign has been issuing one mic-drop statement after the other following Trump’s rallies, speeches and addresses, with titles like “Statement on Trump’s… Whatever That Was , “Donald Trump Remains Too Scared to Debate Kamala Harris ” and (my personal favorite) “JD Vance Is a Creep (Who Wants to Ban Abortion Nationwide). ”

( “Happy World IVF Day to Everyone Except JD Vance” was a close second.)

But it was the DNC itself that served as the joyous, flag-waving wake for the Democrats’ “When they go low, we go high” mentality.

Whether it was former President Barack Obama’s jab at Trump’s obsession with size; comedian D.L. Hughley telling the crowd that with so many Republicans supporting Harris, Trump finally knows “what it’s like when you get left for a younger woman”; or the possibly that the party intentionally spread a rumor that Beyoncé was a surprise guest to get more people to tune in and watch, Democrats did not come to play nice.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg took on Trump running mate JD Vance ’s hatred for women, former President Bill Clinton took on Trump’s age , and the entire Democratic committee took on Vance, Trump and worm-brained RFK Jr. for being “weird as hell.”

The party even had Mrs. Obama deliver the stirring eulogy herself.

The former first lady expertly turned Trump’s line about migrants taking “Black jobs” against him, asking the captivated crowd: “Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs’?” She went on to attack the Republican presidential nominee for “failing up” and benefiting from the “affirmative action of generational wealth,” and, yes, without even saying his name.

With a Shoryuken move, she condemned Trump’s “limited, narrow view of the world” that made him “feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking, highly educated, successful people who happen to be Black.”

Then, on the final night of the DNC, as Harris accepted her party’s nomination for president , she cleaned up what was left of the twice-impeached former president, calling him an “unserious man” who “sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol” before he was ultimately found “guilty of fraud by a jury of everyday Americans and, separately, found liable for committing sexual abuse.”

“Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails. How he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States,” Harris continued. “Not to improve your life. Not to strengthen our national security. But to serve the only client he has ever had: himself.”

The Democrats’ “the gloves are finally off” tactics and the vice president’s acceptance speech were so effective, in fact, that while Trump was angrily shit-posting during the final night of the DNC on his Truth Social platform, he hilariously wrote: “IS SHE TALKING ABOUT ME?”

The disgruntled candidate then called into both Fox News and Newsmax, so bothered by his political rival’s remarks that he was accidentally pressing buttons on his phone’s keypad while incoherently rambling about fracking and China.

Fed up, Trump’s favorite cable news outlet kicked him off the air after 10 minutes.

So while the Democratic Party’s presidential campaign is one that centers on hope, joy and a positive vision of this country’s future, I for one am glad that it has also adopted the immortal words of ” Parks and Recreation ’s” very own Tom Haverford:

“I’ve never taken the high road, but I tell other people to because then there’s more room for me on the low road.”