Kamala Harris is showing that joy can be a strategy
Originally published by The 19th
This column first appeared in The Amendment, a biweekly newsletter by Errin Haines, The 19th’s editor-at-large. Subscribe today to get early access to future Election 2024 analysis.
Kamala Harris’ campaign for president has been largely defined by joy—which some people seem to think is a bad thing.
Last month, New York Times opinion columnist Patrick Healy wrote that “Joy is not a strategy.”
“Being our joyful Momala is not going to win the election,” he argued, and warned that Harris “can’t coast on joy.”
But it’s not just Harris’ happy warrior approach that’s a problem. Talking to Kara Swisher on her podcast last month, Democrat David Axelrod—former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, candidate of “hope and change” in 2008—cautioned his party against “irrational exuberance” as Harris’ candidacy has continued to draw cheering, excited crowds by the thousands.
If hope and fear can be successful political strategies—and they have been in recent presidential election cycles—then why not joy?
Americans’ right to the pursuit of happiness is enshrined in our founding document. And in 1932, Democratic standard bearer Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the party its unofficial theme song, “Happy Days Are Here Again,” a tune rooted in American optimism.
Harris’ joy is about brighter days ahead for Americans. It’s her pitch after the exhaustion of surviving a global pandemic and grappling with national reckonings around race and gender. It’s also a contrast to former President Donald Trump’s past-focused pledge to “Make America Great Again,” one that’s often about being afraid of a changing country that he says is leaving certain people behind.
For many Black Americans—particularly Black women—joy has long been a form of resilience and resistance, a method of survival. For Harris, it is also now political, as a key pillar of her campaign that is resonating with many Democrats. It’s attracting Americans who may be curious about her and this new feeling in our politics and tired of the divisive climate that has dominated much of the last decade.