Why is the US right so obsessed with the Obamas’ marriage? | Arwa Mahdawi

An estate on Martha’s Vineyard. A nine-bedroom house in DC. A family home in Chicago. Barack and Michelle Obama own about a gazillion dollars’ worth of property. Turns out they don’t need any of their fancy mansions, however, because they live rent-free in rightwing commentators’ heads. While the right has always been fixated on trying to find fault with former president Obama, they have now become unhealthily obsessed with the idea that Barack and Michelle’s marriage is failing. There’s no evidence to support this, mind you. Just vibes.

Picking up on these mysterious vibes is conservative commentator Megyn Kelly, who recently proclaimed on her podcast that she thinks Michelle and Barack “married the wrong people”. Many straws were grasped at to come to this conclusion – including the fact that Michelle once said that she likes going to bed early (wise woman) and her husband doesn’t.

Kelly was also drawing on months of chatter in conservative circles about the Obamas’ marriage being on the rocks. This was largely sparked by the fact that Barack has made a few high-profile public appearances without Michelle. It is a truth universally acknowledged, after all, that if a man should find himself in public without his wife then he’s probably having an affair with Jennifer Aniston. I don’t know how the Aniston-Obama rumours got started but they became so persistent that the actor was forced to dispel them during a Jimmy Kimmel interview last year.

Michelle Obama, meanwhile, has a theory about why so many people are obsessed with her marriage: sexism, basically. During a recent appearance on Sophia Bush’s podcast she noted that women struggle with disappointing others. So much so that people “couldn’t even fathom that I was making a choice for myself, that they had to assume that my husband and I are divorcing”.

I’m fairly sure another ism is at play in all this. There seem to be certain conservatives who can’t stand the idea that the people they loathe beyond reason are living happy and fulfilling lives. That’s why joy has always been a form of resistance. Beyond all the isms, though, there’s also laziness. If rightwingers really want to criticise a guy who was president a decade ago there are plenty of valid things they could cite, including his horrendous drone strike policies. His marriage, though? That’s below the belt. Let Michelle go to bed early, you weirdos, and put these silly rumours to rest.