Original publisher: 19th
This column first appeared in The Amendment, a biweekly newsletter by 19th editor-in-chief Erin Haines. Subscribe today To get early access to the 2024 election analysis:S.
Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign has been defined largely by entertainment, which some seem to think is a bad thing.
Last month, New York Times columnist Patrick Healy said: Wrote “Joy is not a strategy.”
He argued that “being our merry momala alone won’t win elections,” and warned Harris that she “cannot rest on her laurels.”
But the problem isn’t just Harris’s happy-go-lucky warrior approach. It’s Kara Swisher and her Podcast Last month, Democrat David Axelrod, the 2008 “Hope and Change” candidate and former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, warned his party against falling into “irrational exuberance” as Harris’s candidacy draws enthusiastic crowds of thousands.
If hope and fear can be successful political strategies (as they were in the recent presidential election), couldn’t joy be a successful strategy too?
Americans’ right to pursue happiness is enshrined in our founding documents, and in 1932, Democratic leader Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the party an unofficial theme song, “Happy Days Again,” a tune rooted in American optimism.
Harris’s joy is about a bright future for Americans. It’s her pitch after surviving a global pandemic and grappling with a national reckoning on race and gender. It’s also a contrast to former President Donald Trump’s past-focused “Make America Great Again” pledge, which often fears a changing nation that he says leaves certain people behind.
For many Black Americans, especially Black women, joy has long been a form of resilience and resistance, a way of survival. For Harris, joy is also a central pillar of her campaign, a political one that resonates with many Democrats. It’s engaging Americans who are curious about her and the new feel of our politics, and who are tired of the divisive climate that has prevailed for the past decade.
Harris’s joy is also a striking rejection of the idea of the “angry black woman,” a stereotype rooted in racism and misogyny that has long served to ignore and diminish the voices, leadership, and agency of black women across society. In this campaign, the angry one is Trump, who personally attacks and denounces Harris.
Her joy is a disarming tactic for Trump, a branding expert known for pushing opponents to defeat, but he has yet to come up with an effective line of attack against Harris. On the campaign trail and in interviews, he has mocked her characteristic laughter, which has sometimes been interpreted as a sign of geekiness or nervousness, but which she now sees as a vocal expression of joy.
Joy alone can’t win the election, and Harris herself has made it clear that she’s trying to win over voters. Last week, she gave her first sit-down interview as a Democratic candidate after growing calls for tough questions from serious reporters. On Tuesday, Harris and Trump face off in the first presidential debate, another test of her candidacy and a chance to introduce herself to the American people in a different context.
She began to elaborate on her governing plan, focusing on middle-class affordability and home ownership. Her previous role as a U.S. senator, where she slammed GOP nominees for Cabinet and Supreme Court posts during the Trump administration, and her decades-long career as a prosecutor helped establish her reputation as a fighter.
And in urging voters to vote in November, Harris portrayed participating in democracy as a duty and privilege of American citizenship, not the burden many have felt during the era of voter suppression.
She talks about an economy that creates opportunity for everyone, while also talking about the hardships Americans are facing, and she embraces the optimism, joy and patriotism that has been missing from Democrats.
The campaign has emphasized that it sees itself as the underdog in a close race, but there are signs that jubilation is an effective strategy. Polling figures show Harris in key states that she should win. She has raised more than $540 million in just over a month, more than any political campaign in history during that time. At rallies across the country, the campaign has enlisted tens of thousands of volunteers to text, call, and knock on doors. And a grassroots effort has taken hold to support Harris, with groups including women, men, LGBTQ+ people, evangelicals, chefs, and others gathering on Zoom calls to organize and fundraise.
Emotions are often seen as a sign of weakness in our male-dominated society. But now that women are leading the way, what if we could view joy as an asset to leadership rather than a liability, and as part of how we begin to heal as a nation?
Four years ago, Harris’ joy wasn’t front and center. Now, it’s something that helps her present herself to voters as she transitions from a wary candidate to a more genuine candidate. Combined with her vision for the presidency and the campaign’s ongoing plan to get voters to the polls, joy could be part of Harris’s winning formula in November.
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