Former First Lady Michelle Obama, the consistent target of enduring MAGA conspiracy rumors that she will be a late replacement for President Joe Biden on the Democratic 2024 presidential ticket, has said that the prospect of a Donald Trump victory in 2024 “terrifies” her.
“I am terrified about what could possibly happen because our leaders matter,” Obama said recently, “who we select, who speaks for us, who holds that bully pulpit, it affects us in ways that I think sometimes people take for granted.”
Asked in an ABC interview whether Obama’s terror was justified, California Governor Gavin Newsom — who has acted as a surrogate for the Biden administration on numerous occasions — responded plainly: “Yeah, absolutely. We all should be.”
Newsom elaborates: “What more evidence do you need? Here’s a guy who lost the election, Trump, and tried to wreck the country. He’s lighting democracy on fire…he’s making democracy a partisan issue. The consequences are profound and pronounced.”
Democracy has become a partisan issue.
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) January 28, 2024
Republicans are lighting our freedoms on fire.
There couldn’t be more at stake this election. pic.twitter.com/kJQ49Buhrj
Newsom’s contention that Trump has made “democracy a partisan issue” and Obama’s declaration that she’s “terrified” of a second Trump presidency both echo the recent rhetoric of former GOP Congresswoman Liz Cheney, the rare Trump antagonist who still wears the GOP badge (despite her excoriation by MAGA adherents in the party that censured her).
Cheney, too, has declared Trump’s candidacy an acute threat to democracy, and spoken — in line with Newsom comments about Trump’s making democracy a partisan issue — about how young people are no longer deciding whether they are Republicans or Democrats.
Instead, Cheney charges, they are being forced by Trump to grapple with a larger issue: whether they want to live in a constitutional democracy — or not.
"One of the things that does give me hope is how many people have said…they don't think about 'Well, am I a Republican or a Democrat?' They're saying, 'Are we going to live in a country that's governed by the Constitution?'" —@Liz_Cheney
— Pod Save America (@PodSaveAmerica) January 26, 2024
Full interview: https://t.co/9KCff8AJ5i pic.twitter.com/gHS0GIlx7U
