The New York Times recently ran an op-ed entitled Joy is Not a Strategy.
They could not be more wrong.
Joy is dangerous.
It’s wild.
It’s subversive.
And it’s contagious.
For the past eight years we’ve had a lot that is admirable. We’ve had convictions, we’ve had our values, we’ve had our burdens and our work and our efforts. We’ve had passion for the hurting and the helpless and the vulnerable. We’ve had a tenacity and perseverance that has kept the hatred at bay. What’s been largely absent has been joy—and many of us are now realizing how much we’ve missed it: to feel expectancy again, to find ourselves in proximity to possibility, to believe better days are in the windshield and not just the rearview mirror.
And this joy has been a surprise to everyone, perhaps most of all to those of us who have found it taking up residence within us—as if someone has shown up to the wrong house and isn’t staying. But we were always supposed to be its home. That’s why we’re on the side we’re on. This is joy’s homecoming. It is a prodigal’s return.
In the span of a few short weeks, Vice President Harris, Governor Tim Walz, and their quickly blossoming campaign have reminded us why we’re fighting in the first place: so everyone can pursue happiness unfettered, so that no one is a permanent stranger to optimism. With their beaming smiles, their confident countenance, and their clear love for this life, they have given us permission to laugh again, to feel lightness, to dance; to do this important work of equity and justice, not just with a furrowed brow and aching back—but a twinkle in our eyes and a spring in our steps.
Yes, joy is the thing that has returned, and not a moment too soon.
And joy in these days and against this opponent is the greatest weapon we have, because it is nonexistent in him and his movement.
That is why the differences now are so jarring in the most beautiful of ways.
The emotional deficit of the other side is continually on display:
in their contorted, sneering disposition; in their so readily brandished middle fingers; in their steady spit showers of verbal filth.
It is a cult of grievance, a misery movement, a community of opposition.
With each angry gesture and with every slandering epithet, they reveal in high-definition detail what it looks like when someone loses the light inside them. War does this to the human heart—and these people are at war with the world because that is all fear can produce. And this heart distinction has become the dividing line in this version of America.
It is between joyful people and miserable people: those who live open-handed toward the world and those whose fists are balled tightly; people who are driven by compassion and those fueled by anger; people who want a bigger table—and those feel it belongs solely to them. As disheartening as it is to witness people this internally toxic, it’s a cautionary reminder of who we do not want to become, of what we can’t let the fight do to us.
We have nurture the goodness inside us despite the outside badness; to not be defined by how many things we hate.
Our default response to this life can be hope and not derision.
May we who oppose this national malignancy, never become so devoid of lightness that we resemble those who celebrate it.
May we never applaud someone’s suffering, never weaponize our religion to do harm, never grow comfortable with hearts that are only capable of anger.
May we never lose our laughter, our softness, our lightness in this life.
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have unleashed wild, unpredictable, contagious joy—and we aren’t going to stop until every loving and open-hearted human being here gets a chance to feel it fully. It’s time to renovate this place with eyes fixed on what we love, with hearts affixed to our sleeves, and with ready smiles that hateful people will never understand.
Joy Trumps Fear.
