By Mattie Timmer
The Harris-Walz ticket claiming the word “joy” for itself, while getting the label of “angry weirdo” to stick to the entire GOP all in a 3-week span, is a master stroke of political strategy for the Democratic Party that is not, yet fully realized.
I’ll get around to more on why but here’s the first reason:
They’ve put the Republicans in the position where their only recourse is to attack joy.
Think about that for a minute.
A few days ago, talking heads on Fox News were actually forced to take the stance that joy is bad.
And why is it bad? Well, caravans are marching, war is imminent, the sky is falling and hell is being visited on earth as we speak! They (you know who) are coming for your suburbs! Your shower heads, stoves, even your children’s genitals - all in danger of extinction! Those liberal commies are responsible for such an amazing list of imagined affronts to God and man alike, you might not even believe it (we know you will)!
How dare Harris talk about happiness when there is so much to be unhappy about?
This is dark and depressing shit. I don’t know about you, but over the last nine years I’ve had a belly full and I’m ready for something new. Judging by the bored and dwindling crowds at his blathering misery-fests, even some riders on Trump’s train might be looking for an exit station.
Yet despite this perpetual storm cloud of doom - coupled with the authoritarian nightmare screed of Project 2025, Trump’s promise to be a dictator on day one, and that pesky attempted coup on January 6 - the Biden campaign trying to get a foothold with “It’s the Democracy, Stupid” was failing to launch. Worried Democrats and media pundits declared that Biden was just too old and un-vigorous to deliver this critical message. While that has some merit, I would humbly suggest that the messenger was less to blame than the doom and gloom of the message itself.
Democracy in danger is not a message of hope. It’s just another episode in the streaming overload of awful. It was a little easier for the under-informed to relate to a “this guy’s too old” message than “this almost-as-old guy will use the Constitution as kindling.” The peril is real, but no one was listening. And fear of your opponent has never been the energizing force necessary to inspire volunteers, fill the coffers or invigorate voters.
Now, much to Trump’s chagrin, his campaign strategy has been turned on its slightly grazed, maxi-pad wearing ear. However, the wisdom of withdrawing from Biden so late in the game was hardly a consensus at the outset and could have gone a number of different ways. The first few days, the tenuous Anti-Trump coalition that prevented his reelection in 2020 held its collective breath. Would it be a fractured Democratic Party hoisting a battered winner to the podium in late August? Even with Biden’s endorsement and the swift unity behind Harris, the matchup between a truth-bereft former incumbent and a sitting vice president could easily have settled into a feeble battle of administrations. Harris could have been forced to play “I’m speaking” on a continuous loop to have a chance of ever being heard over the tidal wave of Trump’s lies for the next 80-plus days. The resulting disenchanting slog through familiar finger pointing would have left the electorate uninspired and more convinced than ever that both parties are serving up the same unpalatable, lumpy gruel on different colored plates.
Enter joy, stage left.
The Harris campaign forcefully breaking the chains of dispiritedness and allowing people to feel Pollyannaish for a change after years of angry polarization sets up exactly the kind of clear distinction from Trump that is required to finally loosen his grip on the neck of American democracy.
Fear vs. Hope
Grievance vs. Optimism
Accusation vs. Kindness
And yes, Anger vs. Joy
The first deep breath of fresh Spring air after a long winter is always the sweetest, don’t you think? And setting down a heavy burden we’ve been carrying so long now offered the public a palpable feeling of relief and excitement to move forward.
Despite the shortened duration, both campaigns are barely underway. I want to wrap the relief of the first weeks of this changed race around me and stay there as much the next guy, but I can predict with the utmost confidence that this respite while MAGA scrambles to regroup around a message that isn’t “Biden’s Old” won’t last until November 5th. You know as well as I do that the aforementioned experts on lobbing ugly, liberal-devils-will-drink-the-blood-of-your-children grenades are pulling the pins as we speak.
Even with the Harris campaign’s burgeoning crowd size serving as Trump’s kryptonite and leaving him writhing nightly in a sweat-soaked pool of his own demented hysteria, this race is far from in the bag. There is too much at stake for every Bannon stooge who’s been criming or grifting with impunity with Trump as cover to lay down their propaganda weapons.
It will be worse than you can imagine. Trump and his band of oligarchs are absolutely incensed at the thought of the rabble, led by a woman of color no less, taking from them what they believe to be rightfully theirs. The choking, spittle-flecked rage of waning entitlement will unleash a firehose blast of unfettered racism, misogyny and filth capable of circumnavigating the globe a few times at least.
Here's where I get back to the unrealized beauty of setting up the joy vs. weird matchup right out of the gates.
I believe the Harris-Walz campaign has masterfully positioned itself to dismiss/deflect more easily much of the coming onslaught. It feels very reminiscent of what Ronald Reagan did back in his second debate against Jimmy Carter in 1980 when he chuckled affably, “There you go again,” in response to an attack by Carter.
Few candidates or campaigns manage to get beyond the mechanics and wade into the waters of a movement. Reagan understood that dejected Americans still waiting in lines for gas and for the hostages in Iran to be returned needed a win. We craved “A New Hope” (though we just called it Star Wars back then) and he delivered it. Nobody called it joy that I can recall, but a landslide of people was feeling it. It wasn’t called “the Reagan Revolution” for nothing. Too young to vote but old enough to be inspired, I cast my lot with the GOP because of it and stayed there for a long time. So many of us did.
Reagan’s geniality and charm insulated him, allowing him to build himself a shining city on a hill that we all wanted to visit - and all the subsequent arrows launched at its towers slid away impotently as just another desperate and annoying there-you-go-again. Maybe whatever Carter was attacking him for was thoroughly legitimate, but who knows or remembers, and that’s the point. Every attack was no longer an attack on just a man, his record or his positions on issues. They became an attack on optimism itself.
Forty-four years later, I think Harris and Walz have tapped into something equally remarkable.
While unapologetically pounding their stake in joyful ground, they’ve simultaneously managed to rip off the frightening mask of their opponents and expose them as the dour, whiny, fragile weirdos they really are. It feels like the end of a Scooby-Doo episode, where sensible Kamala “Velma” Harris explains how the scary monster was really just some freaky basement dweller trying to steal democracy, and then everyone laughs and goes off to enjoy a much-deserved Scooby snack served by the kindly, local football coach.
No debate has yet been held, no policy papers released and other than some cheeky swipes at the stunningly incoherent, unforced errors of the former president - no major offensive has yet to be launched, yet the Harris campaign is growing in excitement nearly as fast as ticket sales for a new leg of the Eras tour. On the flip side, every frustrated sortie attempted by the Trump camp has been volleyed back by the Harris team with a chuckled, “there those weirdos go again” in a way that would make the Great Communicator proud.
Armed only with normalcy, approachability and some hearty, genuine laughter, the Harris candidacy has camo caps trending and red hats, well, not. As a former Republican, I find it especially adept and hilarious to see Democrats smilingly adorning themselves in camo wear and the old “fuck your feelings” crowd complaining about “cultural appropriation” in Rumplestiltskinesque frustration. We’ve entered a version of the upside down that I could never have predicted in a million years and frankly, it’s a tad delicious.
You might say, it brings me joy.
