Cohen: Next, Kamala Harris must add clear policy to her ‘politics of joy’

PORTLAND, Maine — If you want a taste of the politics of joy — the byword of Kamala Harris’s campaign — consider the roll call of the states at the Democratic National Convention. It is the best illustration of the party’s new energy since Joe Biden left and she arrived.

The roll call is a convention tradition. It is one of the spectacles of American politics, democratic and majestic, when each delegation, in alphabetical order, is asked to report its votes for the party nominee — and responds with a flourish.

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In the past, before primaries selected and bound delegates, the roll call had drama. Today it is corny, funny and entertaining, as puffed-up state chairpersons step up the microphone for their minute of fame on national television to brag about the uniqueness of their “great state” of everything.

But the roll call last week was unprecedented. Anchored by DJ Cassidy — wearing a light broad-rimmed hat and electric blue double-breasted suit, spinning the discs beside the buttoned-up party secretary tallying the votes — it was one hour and 16 minutes of rhetorical karaoke. A dance party.

Were Biden the nominee, the celebration would have been muted; with Harris, it was raucous. And now, in a way these things happen in politics, joy has become the motif of her surging campaign.

From Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, the mood is pure exuberance, something that has disappeared from the conversation in the age of Donald J. Trump.

Joy is not a strategy. It will not alone change minds and win votes. But it is about the rebranding of Harris, for whom optimism is natural.

You can’t fake this kind of thing. You can’t put on an incandescent smile or affect a deep laugh. It comes from within, a confidence, a peace of mind, a belief that this is what you were made to do and, dammit, you’ll enjoy doing it.

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The best of presidents have had this gift: Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan. They loved the game, relished the humour. It was such a part of JFK, they called it “The Kennedy Wit.”

If humour in politics is a lost art, along with quoting poetry and history, it’s because politics has become a zero-sum game. It is scorched earth. At this, Trump is a master. He is joyless.

From His Humourlessness there is no self-deprecation, subtlety or irony; instead it is grievance, insult and lament. His kind of humour is mocking your opponent (“Little Marco” Rubio, Ron “DeSanctimonius”). The monikers are funny at first in their silly way. Repeated, they’re just childish.

Harris calls the adolescent Trump “an unserious man” but in one sense, he is very serious. His view of America is bleak, cruel, Darwinian — all carnage, chaos and communism.

Then along comes Kamala (whose name he deliberately mispronounces), who is the opposite. She smiles, she jives, she laughs. Cackles, too. America may be on the cusp of authoritarianism, we know, but just choose me, she implies, and we’ll live — and laugh — another day!

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Levity isn’t policy. In 1968, the sardonic Sen. Robert F. Kennedy rejected Hubert Humphrey’s “politics of joy” for “the politics of concern.” Joy won’t be enough for Harris. If Americans don’t feel she is strong, credible and trustworthy, she’ll lose.

So in the race to define herself, which will unfold in a television interview with CNN Thursday (the first since her candidacy) and her debate with Trump next month, Americans will make their judgment. She won’t like questions about the withdrawal from Afghanistan, fracking and immigration, but she will have to show who she is.

Watch her win over skeptics. Authority does that, but sunniness helps (just as “sunny ways” defined and helped elect Justin Trudeau in 2015). In politics, character is king; this extraordinary year, character is queen. Her popularity has risen into the high 40s in polls, a seismic reversal. Much of the reason is her story, her experience, her manner, her mirth.

What viewers will see — as sure as the sun shines and rivers flow — is Kamala Harris as tribune of the politics of joy. And to a divided country, facing the starkest of choices, that may be the difference.

Andrew Cohen is a journalist, commentator and author of Two Days in June: John F. Kennedy and the 48 Hours That Made History.

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