Michelle Obama and the Female Vote

Over the past 8 years, Michelle Obama has proven to be a driving force among the female population of the United States. As First Lady of the President of the United States, she has been able to communicate the ideal image of women across the country and make an impact on how young girls see their futures. With her stark disapproval of Trump’s 2005 tapes, she represents the feelings of women all across the country. Women identify with her and therefore support the identity she creates for Trump in segments of her campaign speech for Secretary Hillary Clinton. She says desperately that she “can’t stop thinking about this,” allowing the feelings of other women to be validated. The purpose of her speech, however, is to speak for Hillary Clinton’s campaign…not just to disapprove of Donald Trump’s.

No Vote at all is a Vote for Him

In Michelle Obama’s speech, she constructs her argument in a way that not only tells voters-both female and male- that they shouldn’t vote for Trump, but also that they should vote for Hillary Clinton: “no vote at all is a vote for him.” This two-sided technique allows her to achieve two goals with one speech. An article found on LexisNexis mentions her speech and quotes her with saying “I can’t believe I’m saying that a candidate for president of the United States bragged about sexually assaulting women.”

So What does this mean for Trump? It means that he is not only just losing female votes…he’s losing them to her. And Hillary Clinton is capitalizing on it with pages like this one, stating that “Michelle Obama just said what every woman in America is thinking right now.” Because of Donald Trump’s failure to effectively apologize and repair the situation, Hillary Clinton has a wide open window to make herself look better- through her own words and those of surrogates like Michelle Obama. And those actions are allowing the declining number of female votes for Donald Trump to continue falling.