Joy

A day after Joe Biden abdicated the 2024 presidential race, I have slightly more mature reflections. The least important involve Biden. There are many things we’ll never know because we only ever get to see the one reality playing out in front of us. Life affords no double-blind experiments. But this gives away the game: the Democrats are relieved and delighted Biden stepped down, and Republicans are frustrated and angry. It must have been excruciating for the old fighter to leave the ring, but he did it for selfless reasons. We can all admire him for that. 

As the news settled into my bones yesterday, I saw my mind slowly releasing Biden consciousness and turning to Kamala Harris. In any other of the 248 years of the country’s history, her elevation to the top of a ticket (premature in a formal sense, but all but settled informally) would be earth-shattering news. Only the second woman to lead a party, and one of Jamaican and Indian descent. So much of my attention goes to stopping Trump that I hadn’t fully absorbed what welcoming Harris means. Yet if she wins, it will be huge for our country. 

So many people have been kept out of national leadership. Harris represents one group (Black Americans) who were once targets of enslavement and who didn’t get the vote, really, until 59 years ago. She represents another (women) who didn’t get the vote until about a hundred years ago, and who in my lifetime were the subject of chin-stroking speculations about whether they were fully equal, capable humans. Decades after women broke into national leadership elsewhere, we’ve still never had one elected president. It’s an indictment of our impoverished imagination. 

But perhaps this is the moment when the U.S. can finally imagine something better. Has there ever been a worse candidate than the convicted felon running against her? Has there ever been a greater chasm between the candidates in terms of intellegence, morality, or competence? Trump and Vance are running on the most anti-woman ticket in at least a century, and they both seem to hold women in contempt as well. The stakes literally couldn’t be more stark. 

This morning, as my Kamala consciousness dawned, though, I was reminded of the human behind the candidacy as I perused some of the memes about her. Whether pro or con, they often include her laugh. For a woman often criticized as too mannered, it is remarkably unrestrained. It strikes like lightning, a big, torso-shaking laugh full of obvious glee. For some reason, that laugh seems to turn off her foes, but I don’t see how. Seeing such joy is infectious. And man, do we need more joy. 

Thanks, Joe, for your service. You did a lot more than I thought was possible. I would have been there in the trenches with you. But the prospect of a Madam President Harris. Well…