Joy Is a Policy Position
In two days, Democrats have upended almost a decade of buzzkill
Aug. 21: Dems flip the script on Trump … Abortion gets its moment … Obamas de-embiggen Trump … Massive media fails …
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For almost a decade now, we’ve grappled with it: How can we be happy while Donald Trump not only paints a dark, dystopian portrait of the world — albeit with the artistic skill of a feces-flinging squirrel monkey — but convinces almost half the country it’s real?
What kind of self-centered sociopaths would we be to know joy while Trump and his white Christian accomplices — and non-white and non-Christian accomplices — tear apart the ideas that have bound us, demonizing immigrants, demonizing LGBTQ+ people, demonizing drag performers, demonizing teachers, demonizing unions, demonizing anyone who dares disagree with them?
How awful would we be not to live every moment in despair as Republican policies cause death and misery for women, immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and even a tiny outlying handful of white Christian dudes?
The only way to be happy, to know joy, in the face of such a threat is to choose it.
Joy is a policy position. If Democrats have lacked a unifying raison d’etre for the country — other than the notion that our economy gives us “access” to health care and “opportunity” not to starve — they appear to have one now.
As Bruce Springsteen memorably sings, “It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.” It is okay to revel in life. Your life. Others’ lives. Life The Concept™.
And if the Democratic policy is now that it’s okay to be happy while fighting the inner national monsters conjured into wakefulness by Trump, happiness can also be the policy of those curmudgeons — such as yours fucking truly — committed to pushing back on Democratic failures on climate change, war, COVID, and more.
We have come full circle.
Nine years ago, Trump was a joke. The tabloid fixture who played a CEO on TV.
The more he said shameful things, though — and the more he shat on our norms — the more we metamorphosed him from joke to existential threat. Trump Derangement Syndrome was born — in which his statements were interpreted in the worst, maximalist light.
Identifying nuance or ambiguity in his verbal smorgasbords became verboten; instant proof of loving Trump and all he allegedly stands for.
The Washington Post adopted the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” and people took it seriously. From a newspaper owned by Jeff Bezos.
You can argue it worked in 2020 — when Trump was in office.
But with Trump gone almost four years, demonizing Trump wasn’t working this year. Because Americans are dumb and bought into Trump’s many cons. But also because Americans aren’t dumb and saw for themselves that some Trump critiques were overblown or horseshit. (Two examples just from yesterday below). Which makes it easy to dismiss the mainstream media in toto.
Fear of a Trump planet became the motivating force of, well, everything. But now, this week, the Democratic National Convention has done something rare in modern times. In just two days, a political convention has actually accomplished something substantive and also fairly radical.
It used to be virtually a requirement to proclaim Trump the Greatest Single Threat to Humanity™. An extinction-level event. If you balked at any element of the argument, you were with him.
Democrats this week have chosen not to do that. It’s not just a surprise new candidate Trump must face, it’s the exact opposite of the old strategy.
In just two days, Democrats have used their convention to transform the party and its culture into something resembling the laughter of Vice President Kamala Harris writ large.
Joy is a policy position in part because it reflects a qualitative assessment: An analysis that, no, Trump is not existential, he’s ephemeral and temporary. The fever will break. This too shall pass. With good crews, ships right themselves.
Joy also telegraphs to those in thrall to Trump, those in fear of the world he prophesies, that no actually drag queens aren’t coming for our kids and yes taking on monopolies really will benefit us all.
Rejecting Trump’s dystopian visions and reveling in our future need not be just wishful thinking. It’s the party’s empirical assessment — from all the states and territories — that the surge of undemocratic, un-American MAGA politics is not the wave of the future, it’s the farewell wave of our past.
That, in part, is why it’s okay to be happy. Not because demographics will fix things; Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) is showing even old white guys can be happy. And it’s not even because Harris will definitely win. It’s that enough people reject Trumpism for us to know we’re on the right course, regardless of what detours we encounter.
That’s why the Obamas made fun of Trump last night. Because he’s just a guy. A guy we first recognized as inherently silly and insubstantial. A guy whose strength might have been bolstered by Democratic doom-warnings.
And maybe — if I can be indulged some white-guy thoughts on race — that’s the fault of white Democrats. Trump was so outside our norms that I suspect a lot of white people felt the only responsible way to respond to Trump’s racism was to expand condemnation to include everything about him and to maximize his every utterance.
Call it virtue signaling or trying to be a good ally. But maybe just this once the best intentions of white folks weren’t actually the best course to take.
So now we have a party led by a Black and Indian-American woman. And last night we heard from America’s first Black president and first lady.
And maybe they see Trump better than white people have. Maybe they’ve known this guy — and seen this guy in so many others — long enough to know what Trump’s fellow New Yorkers understood about him from the start: Trump jokes are fitting because Trump is a joke.
When they go low, we go hi-larious. Or if not hilarious, at least Dad-joke goofy.
Instead of magnifying Trump, the Obamas made him small. Don’t take my word for it. Here’s Politico:
“Going small is petty, it’s unhealthy,” Michelle Obama said of Trump.
She diminished his wealth as not an indicator of merit or worth, but a byproduct of “failing forward” via “the affirmative action of generational wealth,” adding, “If we see a mountain in front of us, we don’t expect there to be an escalator waiting to take us to the top,”
As the Times notes, the former first lady took the towering Trump threat of racism and knocked it down with one punch…line:
“[H]is limited, narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hard-working, highly educated successful people who happened to be Black…
"Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those 'Black jobs'?"
Her husband drew laughs with another small joke. Here’s the part that’s getting so much attention, but you really have to watch the clip to see what Barack Obama does when he talks about crowd sizes:
“Here’s a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago. It has been a constant stream of gripes and grievances that’s actually been getting worse now that he’s afraid of losing to Kamala. There’s the childish nicknames. The crazy conspiracy theories. This weird obsession with crowd sizes.”
At that point, Obama accordions his hands and looks at them as they indicate weeness, in what the audience and everyone else took as a jab at Trump’s weenis.1
Last night wasn’t just mockery or jokes. It was fun. They turned the procedural roll call into a dance party. And it was a conscious decision to make it fun. It was a celebration. Of something. Of the things Trump fears. Here’s DJ Cassidy:
“One overarching goal was to turn the arena into a party, into a celebration, a celebration of our country in all its diversity and glory, and I wanted the music to represent us all, represent all genres, all people, all generations.”
This was the same day that the convention spotlighted horror stories of abortion bans. A day after union chiefs populated the podium.
As Zachary D. Carter observes in a smart piece for Slate, even the substance on economics represented unity. Economic fissures once defined by race or age have largely healed.
“This was a party comfortable with itself as pro-union, anti-monopoly, and pro-family — all families — one whose paeans to retail workers, immigrants, and ex–Trump voters seemed natural, with no need for certificates of authenticity.”
A similarly smart piece in the New York Times suggests that the party has coalesced around abortion rights. In this area, too, the party has moved toward the progressive position.
“Safe, legal, and rare” is out. The bodily freedom of women is in, complete with the joy of liberation. Where the 2020 Democratic convention never once mentioned abortion on the main stage — after Trump had reshaped the Supreme Court into an anti-Roe majority! — abortion yesterday got a spotlight.
The convention hall had room for tears and laughter. Democratic unity at this moment means that partying needn’t exclude substance or sorrow.
There’s even space for contrarian critics like myself and protesters inside and outside the convention hall. Harris isn’t responding to them anymore by asking whether they want Trump to win.
That sense of inclusivity — or at least dropping enforced and assumed exclusion — appears to be infectious. Even outside the hall, before the convention began, donors were joining the celebration. With money.
The Washington Post reports this morning that the Harris campaign, combined with the Democratic National Committee, raised more money in July than the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee combined.
The Dems report raising more than $300 million. The GOP disclosed taking in just under $139 million.
That’s less than half. Pretty small.
Bad Journalism
I spent a good chunk of yesterday researching a planned post on how Republicans hold the country hostage, with the presidency as ransom. I read up on Richard Nixon fucking Vietnam peace talks to screw Democrats. Ronald Reagan doing the same thing with literal hostages in Iran to fuck over Jimmy Carter.
The reason was that former Pres. Donald Trump reportedly had committed similar bullshit. (I was workshopping headlines in my head. The Trumping of Fuck’em U-S-A was the best I had come up with.)
One of yesterday’s stories was Trump’s willingness to give Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a job in his administration in return for dropping out and issuing a pro-Trump statement. (“Quit Pro Quote” was the best I had come up with.) In other words, ransoming a possible cabinet post in return for helping Trump politically.
Then there was the story of Trump telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to make a deal with Hamas until after the election. To screw over Vice President Kamala Harris.
Both stories got a lot of oxygen on Twitter yesterday. Credulous Democratic oxygen. And as far as I can tell the two stories are ambiguous at best and sheer bullshit at worst.
Here’s CNN on the Quit Pro Quote story, writing that Kennedy could get a Trump job “if [he] drops out of the 2024 race and endorses the former president.”
Problem is, their Trump quotes don’t actually say that. Nothing does. Here’s the closest they get, riddled with assumptions and ambiguities about wtf Trump is actually saying:
Trump said he would “love that endorsement, because I’ve always liked” Kennedy.
Asked if he would consider appointing Kennedy to a role in his administration if he wins in November, Trump said he “probably would.”
“I like him a lot. I respect him a lot,” Trump said. “I probably would, if something like that would happen.”
Something like what? Who knows. Doesn’t matter: Trump bad, ergo of course the worst interpretation is true.
Now, is it possible Trump really was saying what he reportedly said? Maybe! And it didn’t help that on the same day, Kennedy’s running mate reportedly said they’re considering ending their campaign to help Trump. But the bottom line is, CNN’s report of a Quit Pro Quote isn’t actually backed up in the story itself. That’s a problem!
Then there’s Gaza. This one — about a potential cease-fire deal — made the rounds after PBS’s Judy Woodruff said on air:
“The reporting is that former President Trump is on the phone with the prime minister of Israel, urging him not to cut a deal right now, because it’s believed that would help the Harris campaign.”
As far as I can tell, that’s untrue. There’s no reporting I can find to support it. Woodruff’s remarks appear to be either a misread, or a Telephone Game mangling of an Axios story last week that said the opposite:
“One source said Trump's call was intended to encourage Netanyahu to take the deal…”
This is mainstream news outlets we’re talking about! And this hurts us!
It makes it so much harder to reel MAGA back to sanity land when they can rightly point to sloppy, uncorrected shit like this as evidence of media unreliability.
But by far the worst of all, it cost me fucking hours out of my newsfucking!
TCB
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Go get ‘em, kids! With a smile on your face and laughter in your fucking heart!
Some definitions say weenis is slang for the outside of your elbow; sorry, but as far back as the ‘80s it meant penis.
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