A forceful Instagram post from political commentator Danielle Moodie has thrown fresh fuel onto an old fire: Is America truly ready to elect a woman president?
According to Moodie — and, she argues, according to Michelle Obama — the answer is still a resounding no.
The debate resurfaced after Obama remarked that she has no plans to run for president, citing the hostility and vitriol she endured as First Lady. Critics pounced, but Moodie insisted Obama was simply telling the truth.
“America is so embedded in misogyny and racism that the idea that the best candidate wins is a myth,” Moodie said in a two-minute video that has now ricocheted across social platforms. “We need to break this narrative that women are not capable.”
Moodie’s argument is not abstract. She points to what she describes as a broader cultural and political regression — one she believes has accelerated under former President Donald Trump. From attacks on gender studies and racial equity initiatives to rising cultural nostalgia for 1950s-style gender roles, Moodie says the country is moving in reverse.
And the consequences, she argues, extend far beyond elections.
“We don’t even believe women when they say they’re being abused,” she said. “So how are we going to believe that a woman can lead?”
Moodie also tied the issue to the ongoing controversy surrounding the Epstein files, noting the disturbing allegations involving minors and the bipartisan inaction that victims claim has stretched across five administrations.
The very fact that such documents could be connected to powerful men — including, she noted, a sitting commander-in-chief — underscores what the country truly thinks about women and girls, she said.
The message beneath Moodie’s commentary is blunt: symbolism won’t fix structural harm. A woman candidate cannot be expected to thrive in a political culture that normalizes misogyny, sidelines gender equity and punishes women — especially women of color — for stepping into power.
Her critique mirrors long-standing concerns from scholars and advocates who say the U.S. remains decades behind other democracies in elevating women to the highest office. More than 70 countries have had a woman head of state or government; the United States has had none.
Humanizing the debate, Moodie’s argument isn’t about whether a woman could lead the country — she makes it clear she believes many could. It’s about whether the country is willing to confront the entrenched biases that still make such leadership nearly impossible.
“Wake up,” she urges viewers at the end of the video — a call not just to acknowledge the problem, but to confront it.
Michelle Obama may not be running for office. But the cultural reckoning her comment sparked suggests the conversation she reopened is long overdue.
