#Michelle2020: Mrs. Obama, your country needs you

Mrs. Obama, your country needs you. 

I know you hate politics, but you are in a unique position to rally the troops to defeat President-elect Donald J. Trump in 2020. You never asked to be put in this position — but here you are.

{mosads}No Democrat resonated more with the nation this year than you. Your forceful, inspirational rhetoric challenged us to go high when others went low. You are a role model not just to young women, but to us all, and there is no better person to seize the presidency from the hands of tyranny in four years than you. 

Your words and passion reach deep into our souls; you connect with people in a way Hillary Clinton did not. You are vetted; you are pure. Because, by God, if there was a scandal that could bring you down, it would have surfaced already.

It will be tempting to recede from public life. You deserve a respite. So take the next two years off. Recharge. And then come back with a vengeance, reclaim Barack’s legacy, win election as America’s first female president, and help preserve the republic.

Don’t do it for me; do it for Malia and Sasha. Do it for my 4-year-old niece who said in a video posted on Facebook before it was clear Trump won that she didn’t want a new president because she was scared.

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Her name is Faith. I have faith in her, in her generation, and in you.

Do it for the nation. For the voiceless. For hope.

I pray Trump proves everyone wrong. Perhaps he will accomplish much, but he can never be a great president. That was the Faustian bargain he made. He won the White House, but sacrificed whatever diluted scraps of integrity, honor, and dignity remained in his being.

If Trump proves to be a disaster — or even if not — please run. This is, after all, still the nation that elected and reelected Barack. If he could win in 2008, you can win in 2020.

I live in Louisiana. I did not vote for Secretary Clinton. I was not with her. Not enough Americans were. I voted for Gary Johnson and saw Clinton as a deeply flawed candidate who didn’t get — or chose to willfully ignore — the nation’s desire for a leap forward, not incremental, zig zagging baby steps.

Hands up if you want to make history in four years’ time… #Michelle2020 #ElectionNight pic.twitter.com/SlFiMJmY8H

— Natalie Evans (@NatalieEvans85) November 9, 2016

The day after Secretary Clinton picked Tim Kaine as her running mate, I wrote that she misread the populace — again. “It’s why, in part, she lost in 2008 to then-Sen. Barack Obama,” I wrote. “People wanted change then; they demand it now. Then, as now, she ran as the candidate of experience.”

In choosing a centrist, older, “boring” white male as her running mate, Hillary ceded the mantle of hope to Trump, “not because Trump is optimistic,” I wrote, “but because he offers some change. Any change.”

Choosing Kaine was a major mistake. Change. Change. Change. It was clear early on, from Trump’s surprising primary victory to Bernie’s historic battle, that people wanted change.

You understand this well; it’s how Barack beat Hillary in 2008. Change vs. experience. Well you, Mrs. Obama, would bring both back to the White House. After this election, you would make America great again, not Trump.

It is early yet. But not too early to hope.

#Michelle2020.

Walczak is a New Orleans-based journalist and the author of “Four Gone,” an in-depth investigation into the 1972 disappearance of Congressmen Hale Boggs and Nick Begich.