Slaying the Dragon with ‘Joy’ and ‘Love’

Notes from the Democratic National Convention

Yesterday afternoon I returned to Nashville from the Democratic National Convention. It was a whirlwind by day, Ubering across Chicago to far-flung receptions and luncheons, and by night an inspiring, even transcendent, uniting of some 50,000 souls in the cause of democracy, equal rights, and the Constitution. 

What awakened within me is the possibility that “joy” and “love,” combined in right proportion with constitutional patriotism and self-sacrifice, might in fact be the best check we have against the creeping forces I fear so much: demagoguery and autocracy. 

More than anything else in my research over the past six years, I have concluded that democracy must erect and sustain potent checks and balances against bad actors in executive power—or else the house of democracy first descends into corruption and finally into violence and authoritarianism. 

Yet, my approach has been rational and structural rather than emotional and spiritual. 

Can “joy” defeat Donald Trump? Can “love” of our democracy, the Constitution, the rule of law, and the wondrous, diverse people of our nation triumph over the worst barbarians of our nature that Trump has unleashed in service of his ego? 

Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, and so many other impassioned Democrats I encountered at the convention have me reassessing.

“I love our country with all my heart.” Harris said in her acceptance speech on Thursday night. 

“You can always trust me to put country above party and self,” she continued. “To hold sacred America’s fundamental principles, from the rule of law, to free and fair elections, to the peaceful transfer of power.”

As Walz characterized the moment in his speech, “We’re all here tonight for one beautiful, simple reason: We love this country.”

“We’re not going back,” the vice presidential nominee said further. “We’ve got something better to offer the American people. It starts with our candidate, Kamala Harris. From her first day—as a prosecutor, as a district attorney, as an attorney general, as a United States senator, and then our vice president—she’s fought on the side of the American people. She’s taken on the predators and fraudsters. She’s taken down the transnational gangs. And she’s stood up to powerful corporate interests. She has never hesitated to reach across that aisle if it meant improving your lives. And she’s always done it with energy, with passion and with joy.”

Harris and Walz speak publicly about love and joy, but more vitally they beam them across the hall and over the airwaves. Genuinely.  

Can love and joy, let us query, conquer the perils of Trumpian demagoguery and authoritarianism?  

It all may sound a bit maudlin, and a touch hokey, but I do think so, especially if you add into the mix the fierceness of a prosecutor’s determination and the infectiousness of a football coach’s rallying of players to give the game their all.   

That’s the essence of my awakening at the convention over the past four days. I am certainly not turning my back on the necessity of other checks and balances against presidential demagogues and authoritarians. 

But what seems most apparent today is that love and joy, by energizing hearts and guiding votes, may the best check we have on a “weak man pretending to be strong,” as former Representative Adam Kinzinger aptly summed up Trump at the convention on Thursday night.

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