Why Michelle Obama is skipping the Trump inauguration

But Obama has decided that participating in one Trump inauguration is enough.

“Former First Lady Michelle Obama will not attend the upcoming inauguration,” read a statement from the Obamas’ office. No explanation was given nor was one needed. Obama is in her “no longer willing to go along to get along” era.

Barack Obama, George W. and Laura Bush, and Bill and Hillary Clinton will be present for Trump’s swearing-in ceremony. But the former presidents and their wives have announced that they will not attend the traditional inaugural lunch. (And people say there’s no bipartisanship.)

In 2021, Trump, marinating in lies about his loss to Joe Biden, became the first outgoing president to skip his successor’s inauguration.

As for Obama, this is the second high-profile presidential event in recent weeks that she’ll forgo. She was not with her husband at the funeral of former president Jimmy Carter on Jan. 9 in Washington. Her absence seemed odd until one noticed the seating arrangement in the National Cathedral — Michelle Obama would have been sitting next to Trump.

Obama was even willing to sacrifice honoring in person the much-admired Carter. She left the forced civility to Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice president, who saw his old boss for the first time since Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump incited insurrectionists who chanted “Hang Mike Pence” as they attacked the Capitol.

Shunning the hypocrisies of protocol — and not caring what anyone thinks about it — must be a relief for Obama. From the time her husband launched his first presidential campaign in 2007, she has been as often reviled as she is revered, the former for no discernible reason other than her being the first Black woman in a position once exclusively occupied by white women.

However high her popularity ratings — she is often mentioned as a potential Democratic candidate, though she has no interest in running for public office — Obama has been subjected to harsh scrutiny and racist invective.

In 2008, right-wing media pounced when Obama said that “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country” for believing in change after her husband’s nomination. After the Obamas exchanged a playful fist bump, The New Yorker mocked the conservative pearl-clutching with a cover caricature that portrayed him dressed as a Muslim while she was decked out like a Black revolutionary with a giant Afro and a rifle slung across her back.

During her 2016 Democratic National Convention speech, Michelle Obama was criticized for reminding this nation of an inconvenient truth — that the White House where she and family lived for eight years was “built by slaves.”

Through it all, Obama smiled and said nothing publicly about the misogynoir — the toxic brew of racism and sexism faced by Black women — she endured. But she recognized Trump’s racist comments toward her husband as more than just politics as usual.

In her 2018 memoir, “Becoming,” Obama pointed out the “underlying bigotry and xenophobia” behind Trump’s “birther” lies about her husband’s citizenship. She called them “dangerous” and “deliberately meant to stir up the wingnuts and kooks.”

“Donald Trump, with his loud and reckless innuendos, was putting my family’s safety at risk,” Obama wrote. “And for this, I’d never forgive him.”

How Obama feels about Trump was laid bare last summer in a blistering speech she gave at a presidential campaign rally for Vice President Kamala Harris. She highlighted “the incompetence and the corruption, the chaos that was the cornerstone of [Trump’s] entire four years in office.” It wasn’t just politics. It was personal.

Some will probably call Obama petty for not attending Trump’s inauguration. I doubt she cares. Being the bigger person also means refusing to bend the knee or behaving as if extreme aberrance should be normalized and celebrated.

Whatever else happens over the next four years, this much is already clear — Michelle Obama is done pretending.

---

Renée Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at renee.graham@globe.com. Follow her @reneeygraham.