In his formidably imaginative autopsy of our 37th president, Nixon Agonistes, Gary Wills also rebukes Richard Nixon’s 1968 presidential opponent Hubert Humphrey, who announced his run for the Oval Office by embracing “the politics of happiness, politics of purpose, politics of joy.”
Wills writes that there “was something in the atmosphere that made it seem fairly obscene for a presidential candidate, in a country that admires ‘happy warriors’ and the banishing of fear, to use the phrase ‘politics of joy.’” He argues that Humphrey’s politics of joy was particularly distressing when “cities were in danger, and the college campuses, and the public schools.”
Our cities still face dangers, our college campuses recently teemed with protest, and our public schools cry for resources. But 2024 is no knockoff of 1968, and Kamala Harris is no Hubert Humphrey, although her Minnesota running mate Tim Walz may be a delightful doppelganger.
It would be a mistake to conflate Humphrey’s steely Midwest joi de vivre, pitched against Nixon’s brooding cynicism, with Harris’s resiliently life-giving political joy that battles Trump’s unheroic unbelief in American democracy.
Harris’ joy is rooted in a determination to not repeat or revisit a harmful past, but rather chart the way forward to a redemptive and restorative future. Harris’ beliefs were on subtle yet nuanced display in her first interview since becoming the Democratic Party’s nominee, and more explicitly in her speech on Labor Day at Detroit’s Northwestern High School, where I graduated in the late seventies.
In her conversation with CNN journalist Dana Bash, which included Walz, Harris expressed her desire to bolster “the aspirations, the goals, the ambitions of the American people,” who, she declares, “are ready for a new way forward in a way that generations of Americans have been fueled by — by hope and by optimism.” She contrasted her outlook with Trump’s effort to push “an agenda and an environment that is about diminishing the character and the strength of who we are as Americans — really dividing our nation.”
‘Eye on the future’
In Detroit, Harris exhorted her audience with the embrace of unions as the backbone of American progress. “Everywhere I go I tell people, ‘Look, you may not be a union member. You better thank a union member,’ ” she said to cheers. “For the five-day workweek, you better than a union member. For sick leave, you better thank a union member. For paid leave. You better thank a union for vacation time.”
Harris said to Bash that she would enhance the “opportunity economy” for ordinary citizens by bringing down “the cost of everyday goods,” and by investing in “America’s small businesses,” and in the nation’s families.
Such a lesson about joy and the political struggle to press forward and to preserve hard-won rights was born, in Harris’ case, in the Black confrontation with persistent and often lethal obstacles. No plantation overseer, no force of racial violence, no political chicanery, no denial of voting, no blocking of public accommodation, and no defiant, political bully or insurrectionists can rob Black folk of their belief in the possibilities of democracy.
Bash asked Harris about Trump’s suggestion that she turned Black recently for political purposes as he questioned “a core part of [Harris’s] identity.” Harris’ laconic response was classic Black signifying joy often used to deflect white assault, deflate white insult and deter white offense. “Same old, tired playbook. Next question, please.” She was determined not to be hostage to Trump’s poisonous views of race but instead to look forward to a day when such barriers no longer prevailed.
Harris’ political joy, with its eye on the future, embraces concern for the masses of folk who are hamstrung by policies that privilege the elite and favor the wealthy. In Detroit, Harris lambasted Trump for his opposition to worker’s rights, contending that he blocked overtime benefits for millions of workers. She claimed that Trump opposed attempts to raise the minimum wage and appointed union busting members to the National Labor Relations Board. Harris said that Trump backed right-to-work laws that permit workers covered under collective bargaining agreements to choose not to pay union dues and fees. Harris promised to change such a dismal plight to a favorable one by passing the PRO Act that gives workers greater power to organize.
In many ways, there is a spiritual progression from Barack Obama to Kamala Harris. Obama is akin to the pioneering Jackie Robinson, one of whose major qualifications was the ability to bite the bullet in the face of racial taunting and hatred and with steely determination look to the future. Obama did the same.
Harris is like Willie Mays, a vibrant participant in politics with the joyful abandon garnered by skill and talent. Robinson’s principled sacrifice opened the way for Mays’ joyful confidence.
When Harris laughs, it’s a triumph at once of Black joy and of Black political swagger. It is not a silly joy but a sober joy, one that derives from confronting bullets, bullies and ballots with the determination to forge ahead to the future in the belief that the universe smiles on our every step.
Michael Eric Dyson is an author and professor of African American and Diaspora Studies, Vanderbilt University.
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