Kamala Harris and the New Politics of Pleasure

Picture: Mark Peterson/Redux for New York Journal

One of the vital hanging themes of the Democratic Nationwide Conference was the way in which the message flipped backwards and forwards between grim warnings that democracy is underneath assault and playful invites to have interaction in a politics of pleasure. Democrats at instances appeared to be trying a tough tightrope act, akin to inviting individuals to bounce their manner out of a burning home. 

For a lot of the conference, the message appeared to be: Be part of the battle to save lots of democracy–and let’s have some enjoyable whereas we do it.  It’s an audacious technique that President Biden might have by no means pulled off.

The tackle by ex-President Invoice Clinton was an ideal instance. “We’ve seen multiple election slip away from us after we thought it couldn’t occur, when individuals obtained distracted by phony points or overconfident. This can be a brutal, powerful enterprise,” he advised the group, earlier than concluding a couple of minutes later: “We’d like Kamala Harris, the president of pleasure, to guide us.”

Time and again, pleasure and happiness have been the theme of cheerful celebrities and upbeat optimists who took the stage on the United Middle in Chicago, together with comedians Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Kennan Thompson and Mindy Kahling, poet Amanda Gorman and songsters John Legend, Stevie Surprise and Sheila E.  However alongside the enjoyable and humorous inventive voices have been loads of audio system like Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who solemnly  invoked the January 6 riot and the necessity to take significantly threats by Donald Trump to terminate the Structure, be a dictator on Day One and pardon convicted January 6 rioters if elected.

“On this life, my father by no means solid a vote due to Jim Crow, so I devoted my profession to defending the votes in opposition to violence and discrimination. You possibly can think about what I felt on Jan. 6 once I noticed with my very own eyes these insurrectionists making an attempt to take that away,” Thompson advised the group. “They did it to rob tens of millions of Individuals of their votes.”

“Trump tried to destroy our democracy by mendacity concerning the election and inciting a violent mob to assault the Capitol,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries stated from the rostrum, earlier than shifting right into a preacher’s cadence and drawing cheers: “Within the Outdated Testomony Guide of Psalms, the scripture tells us that weeping might endure throughout the lengthy night time, however pleasure will come within the morning.”

The Rev. Al Sharpton quoted the identical Biblical passage in his remarks.  “We’ve endured lies and areas of darkness,” he stated. “But when we keep collectively, Black, white, Latina, Asian, Indian American, if we keep collectively, pleasure, pleasure, pleasure, pleasure coming within the morning.”

And shock visitor Oprah Winfrey saluted podium audio system who’d advised wrenching private tales about rape, incest and medical trauma attributable to restricted entry to abortion earlier than doing the pivot.  “We received’t return. We received’t be despatched again, pushed again, bullied again, kicked again. We’re not going again, “ she stated, earlier than singing out the J-word: “So allow us to select. Allow us to select fact, allow us to select honor, and allow us to select joooooooy!”

So which is it? Are Democrats waging a determined battle in opposition to a would-be dictator, or making an attempt to have time? “It’s not a marketing campaign theme,” Quentin Fulks, deputy marketing campaign supervisor for the Harris-Walz ticket, advised columnist Lynn Candy of the Chicago Solar-Occasions concerning the j-word. “It’s simply one thing that they’re doing, that they’re bringing to the desk. I feel if you happen to attempt to manufacture one thing like pleasure, it will probably go mistaken as a result of it’s faux. I feel the rationale why it’s resonating with individuals is as a result of it’s genuine.”

Harris notably didn’t utter the world “pleasure” even as soon as in her prime-time tackle that concluded the conference. As an alternative, she listed Trump’s assaults on democracy.   “Think about not solely the chaos and calamity when he was in workplace, but additionally the gravity of what has occurred since he misplaced the final election,” Harris stated within the stern, persuasive tones of the courtroom prosecutor she as soon as was. “Donald Trump tried to throw away your votes. When he failed, he despatched an armed mob to the U.S. Capitol, the place they assaulted regulation enforcement officers. When politicians in his personal celebration begged him to name off the mob and ship assist, he did the other — he fanned the flames.”

Harris, it appears, will not be going to downplay or ignore the truth that America within the age of Trump has been flirting with open assaults on democracy. However she ought to take into account embracing the politics of pleasure—not solely as a result of her followers prefer it, however as a result of expressions of affection and happiness have a confirmed observe file of dissolving the darkish energy of dictatorship.

I just lately talked concerning the phenomenon with Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at New York College whose guide Strongmen examines how authoritarian strongmen achieve energy — and the way they lose it. Whereas Trump is an uncomfortably good match with the likes of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, India’s Narendra Modi and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, says Ben-Ghiat, a lot of right now’s strongmen are encountering a wave of common resistance world wide.

“There’s a giant motion of anti-authoritarianism constructing world wide, and we’re in the course of a renaissance of nonviolent protest world wide. And there are locations which have had the most important protests they’ve ever had, or within the final 40 years, like in Poland, in Chile, in Israel,” she advised me. “You could possibly title 10 different nations which have the most important protests they’ve ever had, as a result of there’s something altering on the planet. And so considered one of my maxims is to all the time have hope.”

In Turkey, says Ben-Ghiat, the politics of affection was probably the most potent weapon out there to push again in opposition to the creeping authoritarianism of that nation’s strongman, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. “One in all my Democratic heroes is Ekrem İmamoğlu,” she stated, referring to the Mayor of Istanbul. “He ran for workplace in 2019 on a platform of affection. And as a substitute of getting rallies, he walked round and hugged individuals. The full reverse of Erdogan. And he received.”

It’s potential that the brand new politics of pleasure will proceed the activism of the latest previous – the ladies’s march in 2017, the Black Lives Matter demonstrations following the killing of George Floyd in 2020, and this yr’s elections  – as half of a bigger motion to invigorate democracy.
“By no means hand over on the American individuals. There’s a whole lot of decency. There’s lots of people we don’t hear,” Ben-Ghiat says. “A whole lot of it’s behind the scenes. There are lots of people working to safeguard our democracy proper now.”