So many of my friends judged potential mates from the outside in, focusing first on their looks and financial prospects. If it turned out the person … - Michelle Obama

Now that I’m an adult, I realize that kids know at a very young age when they’re being devalued, when adults aren’t invested enough to help them learn. Their anger over it can manifest itself as unruliness. It’s hardly their fault. They aren’t “bad kids.” They’re just trying to survive bad circumstances.

Look, it’s his same old con: doubling down on ugly, misogynistic, racist lies as a substitute for real ideas and solutions that will actually make people’s lives better. Look, because cutting our healthcare, taking away our freedom to control our bodies, the freedom to become a mother through IVF like I did — those things are not going to improve the health outcomes of our wives, mothers, and daughters. Shutting down the Department of Education, banning our books — none of that will prepare our kids for the future. Demonizing our children for being who they are and loving who they love — look, that doesn’t make anybody’s life better. Instead, it only makes us small. And let me tell you this: Going small is never the answer. Going small is the opposite of what we teach our kids. Going small is petty, it’s unhealthy, and quite frankly, it’s unpresidential.

We have this window of opportunity; we have a chance to make something real happen. Something possible happen, to live beyond our fear — think about that, and help us. Help lift us up, help us fight this fight to change — transform — this country in a fundamental way. This chance won’t come around again.