The potential for joy to resonate in American politics has always existed. Yet, until Vice President Kamala Harris effectively became the Democratic nominee a month ago, we had endured nearly a decade in which fear and loathing had run rampant. Anyone who tried to run on positivity seemed out of touch with the zeitgeist, and painfully naive.
This paradigm was almost entirely the result of Donald Trump’s weird worldview, and the fact that, even during the Biden presidency, Trump was setting the terms of the proverbial debate. His followers aped his style, while Democrats reacted by casting him as an existential threat to democracy.
The truth is that we are all evolutionarily hardwired with a negativity bias. You can win elections by scaring voters about dangerous immigrants; Republicans did just that. Conversely, you can win elections by warning voters that your opponent is a wannabe dictator; Democrats did just that.
The problem is that it’s hard to keep your voters perpetually on high alert, which helps explain why Harris pivoted away from talking about the preservation of democracy, which had been President Biden’s core campaign theme.
After nine (or so) years of fear-driven politics, the hunger for something different has finally reached a fever pitch. Joy, it seems, is making a comeback.
I’m not sure who figured out that there was a latent, bottled-up hunger for a happy warrior — or that this “joy” strategy, rather than finger-wagging moral outrage, was the best way to fight a would-be authoritarian. But it was a profound discovery.
Of course, just recognizing that there was an untapped market for it was not enough. You can’t merely say you are “joyful,” any more than you can tell someone you are “funny.” You must demonstrate these attributes. And, as Harris’s running mate Tim Walz said recently, “Our next president brings the joy. She emanates the joy.”
A leader’s attitude will trickle down to their followers. Along those lines, the preprinted signs waved by delegates at their respective conventions betray their candidates’ ethos. During the first night of the Democratic convention, delegates waved signs saying “USA,” a stark contrast to the “MASS DEPORTATION NOW” signs waved during the Republican National Convention.
This is not to say that Democrats are patriotic and virtuous and Republicans are evil; joy is philosophically neutral.
In 1980, for example, Ronald Reagan restored optimism via his unique brand of sunny conservatism. “Whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone,” Reagan declared at the 1992 GOP convention, “I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts.”
In 2008, Barack Obama made history fueled by a message of “hope and change.” From Reagan to Obama, one thing was clear: A politician who can inspire is formidable. If Harris can pull off a victory in November, she will be standing on the shoulders of giants.
There’s something else I like about what Harris and Walz are up to, and it specifically has to do with their choosing the word “joy.”
Thomas Jefferson might have said we have the right to pursue “happiness.” But I believe that joy, which transcends one’s current circumstances, is the superior emotion.
As New York Times columnist David Brooks put it in 2019, “Happiness usually involves a victory for the self. Joy tends to involve the transcendence of self. Happiness comes from accomplishments. Joy comes when your heart is in another [person]. Joy comes after years of changing diapers, driving to practice, worrying at night, dancing in the kitchen, playing in the yard and just sitting quietly together watching TV. Joy is the present that life gives you as you give away your gifts.”
If this sentiment is true, it makes the contrast with Trump’s attitude even more stark. Joy is an emotion that Trump can’t appreciate, for, as Walz says, Trump “knows nothing about service.”
Regardless, one reason to hope that Harris and Walz are successful is to demonstrate that the politics of joy can be more effective than the politics of fear. Such a success will likely spawn imitators.
I’d much prefer a political world where ambitious pols cynically sell hope and joy rather than fear and bitterness. In a sense, we are witnessing a surrogate battle along those lines, right now. Joy and fear are on the ballot.
Matt K. Lewis is a columnist, podcaster and author of the books “Too Dumb to Fail” and “Filthy Rich Politicians.”