Why the Harris campaign is betting on hope in a time of pessimism 

Almost 50 years ago, a then-obscure San Francisco man named Harvey Milk declared his candidacy to join the Board of Supervisors in his city. He was an openly gay man living at a time when it took considerable courage to be out of the closet. Milk used his announcement speech to ask his listeners, many who were themselves gay and afraid, to turn away from fear and embrace hope.

As I listened to the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday night, I heard echoes of Harvey Milk’s appeal when Michelle Obama proclaimed, in her moving and inspiring speech, “America, hope is making a comeback.” 

 Democrats are hoping she is right. 

The former first lady started her convention speech by paying tribute to her mother, who passed away in May, and by framing her mother’s life as animated by what Obama called a “striving sense of hope.”

“Something wonderfully magical is in the air, isn’t it?” Obama asked. “We’re feeling it here in this arena, but it’s spreading all across this country we love.”  

“You know what I’m talking about? It’s the contagious power of hope!”  

What Michelle Obama said captures the heart of the Democrats’ 2024 campaign strategy. That strategy is designed to motivate voters to turn away from fear — fear of Donald Trump, the fear he sows, and fear of each other — and toward hope. 

The message is premised on the belief that hope is a collective as well as individual emotion, capable of inspiring each individual as they feel themselves part of something bigger than themselves. That is why many political commentators are describing the campaign of Kamala Harris as creating the kind of movement that propelled Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008. 

It is too early to know how effective that strategy will be 16 years later; at first glance, it seems like it is a hard sell.

A Pew survey taken last September found that “Americans feel generally pessimistic about the future of the United States.” They were particularly pessimistic about the country’s moral and ethical standards, its ability “to ensure racial equality for all people” and “the country’s ability to get along with other countries.”  

It is not surprising, then, that an ABC News/Ipsos poll reports that “three-quarters of Americans (76 percent) believe the country is headed in the wrong direction.” 

That kind of pessimism shows up again when Americans look to the future. As Pew notes, “They see a country that in many respects will be worse than it is today.”  

A 2022 Gallup survey also found evidence that ours is not a time of hope. Its results show that “Americans have as little optimism as they have had at any time in nearly three decades about young people’s chances of having greater material success in life than their parents.” 

And there are stark racial differences in the audience for a politics of hope. White people, for whom Donald Trump’s MAGA agenda is designed, are much more pessimistic about the future than are Blacks, Hispanics and Asians, with Black Americans being the most optimistic about the direction the U.S. is headed.

Let’s face it — it’s hard for anyone to be hopeful or optimistic about the country or its future when political leaders of both parties have spent years marketing a politics of fear.  

And the politics of fear have, of course, been central in Trump’s campaigns. On Tuesday, when Michelle Obama was speaking optimistically about hope, Trump went to Michigan to remind Americans of everything they have to be afraid of.  

Last Sunday, as an article in the New Republic notes, “Trump shared a post on his Truth Social account showing video footage of a line of people of color walking on a dirt road with the caption, ‘If you’re a woman you can either vote for Trump or wait until one of these monsters goes after you or your daughter.’” 

Until recently, Democrats also have offered fear rather than hope as a political motivator. Their consistent message has been that Americans should be afraid of Donald Trump and fearful about the future of American democracy.  

The fact that Democrats now want to change their message came across vividly in the ways Michelle and Barack Obama talked about Trump on Tuesday. They made him seem small, petty, self-absorbed, lost in his own privilege and out of touch.  

The former president even compared Trump to an annoying neighbor who insists on running his leaf blower under your window. These characterizations are designed to clear away fear and make way for hope.  

That is why the Democrats are betting that this year, Americans want to be energized and excited, and that they will invest in a candidate who offers herself as a candidate “For the Future.” That is a bet well worth making. 

Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College. His views do not necessarily reflect those of Amherst College.