This new “politics of joy” is extremely weird

Why would any rational human being planning a political campaign believe people outside the Democrat bubble are feeling anything resembling joy?  This is joy as some kind of mass delusion or projection, a mind virus rather than a serious political movement. 

Previously, I have opined that describing political matters as joyous or infused with joy was more than a little odd, believing joy is a term best associated with personal matters, friends, family, loved ones, and the like.  A political leader of either party, at least in my opinion, cannot deliver joy or anything close to it.  It’s an emotion that comes from within, existing beyond the far more mundane practical matters of government however elevated the rhetoric may be at times.  Putting this another way, the optimal tax rate isn’t joyous.  It’s a necessary evil.  At the same time, I can certainly understand why my progressive friends might be experiencing a sense of relief and a renewed enthusiasm after President Biden’s abrupt withdrawal from the race last month, even if I wouldn’t refer to the phenomenon as joy itself.  After all, they’d believed they were headed to certain defeat in November and now they think they have a chance of beating former President Donald Trump.  This, however, doesn’t make it any less weird that they chose to make “joy” a centerpiece of the convention last week, to the point where David Graham, writing for The Atlantic, asked, “The DNC Had Good Energy. Now What?”  “For three nights, a joy approaching euphoria has coursed through the Democratic National Convention. I think the word I’ve heard most this week—more than Harris, Trump, or Democrats—is vibes. People say how good the vibes are, ask how the vibes seem, ruminate on how the vibes have shifted since Kamala Harris became the de facto nominee one month ago. And though the repetition might be cringe, it’s true: Everyone is feeling great. But no one seems to be having as much fun as the nominee. Harris hasn’t always radiated such ease, not during her 2020 Democratic primary campaign and not as vice president, but she’s feeling it now and so is her party.”  What this has to do with anyone outside the Democrat Party, fully invested in a Democrat victory, much less good governance, is entirely unclear, but that doesn’t stop him from continuing, “The main bone of disputation among delegates inside the United Center seemed to be whether 2024 was more exuberant than 2008, when the convention nominated Barack Obama, or simply equal to it. The optimism was notable for how new it still was. ‘I love Joe Biden, but it’s like there’s been a breath of fresh air,’ former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland told me. ‘This convention is going to turn out to be my very favorite.’”  Ultimately, Mr. Graham concluded that energy – not policy, not competence, not leadership, not experience, not track record in office, not anything actually resembling a quantifiable or measurable criteria – was the key to the Democrat’s future success, “The Democrats’ challenge now is to figure out how to keep that energy going for the next two and a half months.”  While he admits, there was a “weight” to the task ahead and “hard work” to be done, there was no indication that work included more than spreading positive vibes, as if an election were transformed into a concert tour.

Mr. Graham wasn’t alone in stretching the usage of the word “joy” into new territory.  The rest of the media followed suit, proclaiming that there was literally an entirely new politics of joy itself.  NY Mag’s Errol Louis, for example, recently described “Kamala Harris and the New Politics of Joy.”  “One of the most striking themes of the Democratic National Convention was the way the message flipped back and forth between grim warnings that democracy is under attack and playful invitations to engage in a politics of joy. Democrats at times seemed to be attempting a tricky tightrope act, akin to inviting people to dance their way out of a burning house.  For most of the convention, the message seemed to be: Join the fight to save democracy–and let’s have some fun while we do it.  It’s an audacious strategy that President Biden could have never pulled off.”  He continued, “Over and over, joy and happiness were the theme of cheerful celebrities and upbeat optimists who took the stage at the United Center in Chicago, including comedians Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Kennan Thompson and Mindy Kahling, poet Amanda Gorman and songsters John Legend, Stevie Wonder and Sheila E.”  Still, this didn’t prevent Quentin Fulks, Vice President Harris’ deputy campaign manager from insisting, “It’s not a campaign theme.  It’s just something that they’re doing, that they’re bringing to the table. I think if you try to manufacture something like joy, it can go wrong because it’s fake. I think the reason why it’s resonating with people is because it’s authentic.”  For his part, Mr. Louis bizarrely concluded, “It’s possible that the new politics of joy will continue the activism of the recent past – the women’s march in 2017, the Black Lives Matter demonstrations following the killing of George Floyd in 2020, and this year’s elections  – as part of a larger movement to invigorate democracy,” despite that the women’s march featured celebrities like Madonna fantasizing about blowing up the White House and the Black Lives Matter demonstrations were frequently accompanied by riots, looting, burning buildings, and death, killing at least twenty five people, not exactly joyful events.  “Never give up on the American people. There’s a lot of decency. There’s a lot of people we don’t hear,” Mr. Louis quoted progressive historian and notoriously delusional anti-Trumper Ruth Ben-Ghiat. “A lot of it’s behind the scenes. There are a lot of people working to safeguard our democracy right now.”  CNN took a slightly different tack for its approach to the politics of joy, specifically citing “Black Joy” rather than a more generalized version, claiming “Kamala Harris is tapping into the Black Joy movement.”  “It’s been called ‘Kamalamania,’ ‘Kamalmentum,’ and ‘Kamelot.’ Others dismiss it as ‘irrational exuberance,’ or a political sugar high led by a ‘ding dong.’  In the five weeks since Kamala Harris upended the 2024 presidential race, the commentariat has used all kinds of phrases to describe Democrats’ euphoria about her sudden White House run.  But there is another electoral force propelling Harris’ candidacy that has barely been noticed: ‘Black Joy.’” Who knew there was even such a thing?

Whatever the case, the media has largely been taking its cues from the convention itself contrary to the claims of the Harris-Walz campaign, serving as stenographers and propagandists rather than hard-nosed reports as is sadly typical these days.  For example, former President Bill Clinton declared during this speech before the delegates that, “We need Kamala Harris, the president of joy, to lead us.”  Oprah Winfrey, a surprise guest, asked everyone to intentionally choose joy presumably over its alternative, “So let us choose. Let us choose truth, let us choose honor, and let us choose joooooooy!”  Representative Hakeem Jeffries, cited scripture for a similar purpose, placing political joy in its more biblical, epic context, I guess. “In the Old Testament Book of Psalms, the scripture tells us that weeping may endure during the long night, but joy will come in the morning.”  The Reverend Al Sharpton cited the same passage and went one step further, repeating it four times as if repetition makes it so, “We’ve endured lies and areas of darkness, but if we stay together, Black, white, Latina, Asian, Indian American, if we stay together, joy, joy, joy, joy coming in the morning.”  While Vice President Harris didn’t use the term in her own acceptance speech on Thursday evening, her running mate, Governor Tim Walz, deployed it twice a night earlier.  The first was almost immediately after getting started, “Thank you for your passion. Thank you for your determination and most of all, thank you for bringing the joy to this fight.”  Later, he described the Vice President’s history as a prosecutor and Senator in a more twisted use of the word, “She’s fought on the side of the American people. She’s taken on the pres and fraudsters. She’s taken down the transnational gangs and she stood up to powerful corporate interest. She has never hesitated to reach across that aisle if it meant improving your lives. And she’s always done it with energy, with passion, and with joy.”  Of course, we’ve all heard the phrase “happy warrior,” encapsulating the sense that voters like tough candidates that can bring some charm and humor to even the most bruising political battles, but bringing the joy is brand new as far as I can tell, especially the way it’s used here.  How is it possible that the most important thing of all is bringing joy to a fight, even more so than good ideas, policies, principles, and everything else?  What does it even mean to compromise with your political opponents with joy, wouldn’t resolve and a commitment to your core beliefs be far more important?  Who talks this way or has ever talked this way?

To be sure, some in the media have expressed doubts about building a campaign on the politics of joy.  The New York Times recently opined that “Joy is Not a Strategy,” after previously noting that “Harris Faces Challenge of Translating Convention Joy to Fall Momentum.”  As they saw it, rightly in my opinion, “Vice President Kamala Harris emerged from her nominating convention with a burst of momentum that Democrats hardly expected barely a month ago, when they thought they would be tethered to a possibly doomed re-election bid by President Biden. She has rejuvenated a once demoralized party and given a jolt of optimism to Democrats who now see victory in reach.  The buzzkill reality, however, is that victory is anything but assured. The thousands of jubilant delegates in the hall this week were not representative of the swing voters that Ms. Harris needs to defeat former President Donald J. Trump. History is littered with presidential candidates who roused their partisans at conventions only to fall short come November. And whatever else he is, Mr. Trump is no pushover. Ms. Harris can expect a bruising battle over the next two and a half months.”  Still, neither the Times nor any other outlet I’ve seen has questioned how weird this entire development is to begin with.  Has anyone ever asked for a politics of joy in the history of the world?  We’ve had Make America Great Again, we’ve had hope, we’ve had change, we’ve had the Ownership Society, a bridge the 21st century, Morning in America, the Great Society, the buck stops here, the New Deal, the Square Deal, and more.  We’ve described the contests between presidential candidates using words like momentum, discipline, strength, character, decency, trust, favorability, likeability, etc.  Where does joy fit in?  What’s it got to do with anything in a world where people are experiencing the opposite every time they go to the grocery store, put gas in their car, forget to try to actually buy a car or a house in the first place?  Or every time they turn on the news and learn about some new atrocity in Europe or the Middle East? As Senator Lindsey Graham put it this past weekend, “This whole joy, love fest doesn’t exist in the real world. The world is on fire. Your grocery bill is up. Your gas bill is up. Your mortgage payments are up. And the worst is yet to come if you reelect these people yet again.” Why would any rational human being planning a political campaign believe people outside the Democrat bubble are feeling anything resembling joy?  The word weird is overused in recent days, but it certainly applies here, as some kind of mass delusion or projection, where they’ve convinced themselves anyone cares what they think and their own feelings can be replicated in others without a vested interest in the candidate, as though joy was a mind virus.  Democrats may well be joyful to be rid of Biden, but America in general is less than enthused and it’s weird to think otherwise, especially when the most recent, inaccurate use of the word vibes was for the opposite purpose, when people supposedly weren’t feeling them properly regarding the economy.  The alternative is to believe that Democrats, led by Vice President Harris and Governor Walz, have invented a radical new campaign strategy, one never been tried before in all of history, and what are the chances of that?