The Democratic National Convention, held August 19-22, was, among other things, an occasion of joy. I’ve attended every Democratic convention since 1976, and have never experienced such energy, enthusiasm and, yes, exuberance. People were happy. Happy with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, the candidates for President and Vice President. Happy for the leadership team at the Democratic Party. Happy for the platform, for the entertainment, for the connections. Happy for the offsite events, organized by affiliate organizations. Just plain happy.
People got it and used the word “joy” in many of the columns and commentary around the convention. Some compared the effervescent joy to a “sugar high” and suggested that it couldn’t last. Others say the joy as “rootless” because, they said, the joy was not matched by policy initiatives. Because VP Harris had not agreed to an unscripted interview before the convention, her detractors posited that she was unable to do such an interview. New York Times columnist Patrick Healy wrote a snarky column titled, Joy Is Not a Strategy. Healy says that Harris can’t “coast on joy”, but she isn’t trying to. He says the debates will be her test, and I say she will be time enough for the former President.
Vice President Harris can’t expect the rest of the country to come together with the same enthusiasm as we did at the Democratic National Convention. As the nominee for President, she can expect some shade, some brickbats, and even the outright lies that the former President is addicted to. A columnist like Healy should be honest enough, though, to admit that there were solid policy proposals in the speech he described as “good’. He might have mentioned her notion of an “opportunity economy” or written about her proposal to grant new parents $6000. He might have delved into the ways she proposes to deal with the housing crisis, including granting $25,000 for first-time homebuyers. Or he might have written about her foreign policy firmness. She wasn’t smiling or laughing when she warned dictators and despots that she would not dally with them.
Healy is right, joy is not a strategy. Joy is icing, public policy is cake. You can have cake without icing, but you can’t have icing without cake. The Democratic National Convention showcased the cake that Harris has built through her career – as a prosecutor, District Attorney, Senator and Vice-President. As a mentor, mother, and aunt. As a fierce advocate for women, and a protector of those who have been abused. That’s the cake. The joy is the icing.
The Republicans have their own cake, a mean-spirited cake full of attacks and lies. And if they have any icing it is the bitter vitriol that repulses from the top down. The Democratic cake is solid public policy that helps people, and the icing is a joyful icing, one to be savored. It’s the kind of icing that you lick the spoon on, the kind of icing that you might even eat by itself.
But few want icing without cake, without substance. My message to Patrick Healy is fasten your seatbelt and watch the details of the opportunity economy emerge. What will you write then? Will you stop with the snark? Patrick Healy isn’t the only one. The Wall Street Journal and the right-wing press have been clamoring for details, and Harris has provided some of them. Others have reprised her 2020 Presidential campaign and insisted that she explain her pivot on certain issues. Simple explanation – people evolve; people learn.
The opposite of is despair, misery, sorrow, wretchedness. Coupled with strategy, joy is the blissful delight I observed at the DNC. There was wretched haranguing at the Republican National Convention a month ago. What kind of icing goes with that?
