Hope is making a comeback

Michelle Obama's barnstorming speech in Chicago on Tuesday night announced that "hope is making a comeback". It made me nostalgic for "hopey-changey" 2008, staying up all night to watch Obama win, intoxicated by optimism, smugness, and aesthetic agreeableness.

In hindsight of course it looks was the end of an era. It was November 2008 after all. A few days before my flatmates and I had held a "Dead Famous" haloween party - I had dressed, with insufferable smugness, as the Celtic Tiger. A few people at that party were starting to lose their jobs. The credit cards we used to stock up on booze - with their one-click credit limit raises - were starting to feel pretty heavy. A week or two later I left Ireland "for a year". It would be 6 before I was back.

It was the optimism, the hope, and the vision of the 2015 marriage equality referendum campaign that convinced me to move home. Above all the vision - here was an Ireland that was not just tolerant, but celebratory, empathetic, fun, creative, dynamic - all of the things. It wasn't hope, it was belief, a certainty in who we are.

That carried through into the 8th amendment referendum, which again gave us the chance to see ourselves as a mature people capable of having difficult conversations, of respect and empathy and nuance.

Those campaigns energised a new generation - every young Irish person I have interviewed in the last 6 years has cited one or both of these referendums as a defining influence on their political and often professional trajectory.

While it no doubt brought a lot of new people into politics (as one person told me "I realised if I can knock on a door and ask an elderly man to vote for abortion, I can ask them to vote for better cycle lanes"), it has never felt like the energy - the hope, belief, vision - ever really crossed the barrier into party politics. And we need it now as a country more than we ever did.

This is what I loved about Michelle Obama's speech. Yes she is an exceptional orator and vision caster. But I also heard in her words a subtle analysis of the pearl clutching of those of us want to see a better country, the unwillingness to get involved in imperfect politics, the "goldilocks complex about whether everything is just right".

And it made me think of her call to action - "do something" - in the context of all those brilliant people I know who have a vision for what this country can be, but who don't yet see themselves having a role in the upcoming election.

As Michelle said, there is simply no time for that kind of foolishness.

If you missed it you can watch or read her speech, or I have pulled out and lightly edited her call to action here:

So folks, we cannot be our own worst enemies. No. See, because the minute something goes wrong, the minute a lie takes hold, folks, we cannot start wringing our hands. We cannot get a goldilocks complex about whether everything is just right. And we cannot indulge our anxieties about whether this country will elect someone like Kamala, instead of doing everything we can to get someone like Kamala elected.

Kamala and Tim... they are still only human. They are not perfect. And like all of us, they will make mistakes. But luckily, y’all, this is not just on them. This is up to us, all of us, to be the solution that we seek. It’s up to all of us to be the antidote to the darkness and division.... It’s up to us to remember what Kamala’s mother told her: Don’t just sit around and complain, do something.

So if they lie about her, and they will, we’ve got to do something. If we see a bad poll, and we will, we’ve got to put down that phone, and do something. If we start feeling tired, if we start feeling that dread creeping back in, we’ve got to pick ourselves up, throw water on our face, and what? [Crowd chants back: “Do Something!”]

... So we cannot afford for anyone, anyone, anyone in America to sit on their hands and wait to be called. Don’t complain if no one from the campaign has specifically reached out to you to ask you for your support. There is simply no time for that kind of foolishness. You know what you need to do. So consider this to be your official ask. Michelle Obama is asking you — no, I’m telling y’all — to do something.