As we left the Chicago United Center after Kamala Harris’ acceptance speech, it was hard to tell that we weren’t just leaving behind a late summer night at the ballpark where the White Sox had won a far-too-rare victory. Music played. Police smiled and laughed with the crowd. The protesters were there to demonstrate against the Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel—but even they mingled amiably with the departing Democrats. Their “Justice for Gaza” signs crowded alongside long “Kamala” congressional signs, all crammed together on the same elevated Green Line train.
Joy was the message of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, but this year’s convention offered something rare in political life. While “joy” was a messaging strategy concocted by a room full of advisers, as sure as “hope and change” was in 2008, joy during the convention was more than just a wish or a constructed image. Joy was the unmistakable and inevitable quality of the entire event. And the joy seemed to have come all by itself.
The weather helped. Breezy blue skies and pleasant temperatures turned the long walks to the United Center and the snake-like lines at the outdoor security checkpoints into joyful opportunities to strike up conversations with strangers, all of whom were cheerful. But even where we couldn’t feel the weather, we could feel the energy.
Because of its unpredictability and unreliability, joy is not a good tool for supporting a presidential campaign.
In the middle of the night, trying to reach the convention hall, I wandered into a lounge with an open bar just off the stage, a “dressing room” for the DNC host committee. It’s entirely possible that the party wasn’t meant for me. But buoyed by my joy, I grabbed a drink and chatted with some of the revelers from all over the US before two veteran campaign workers invited me to join them in a booth with a good view of the entrance.
As they proudly showed off their selfies with Oprah, they told us that VIPs passed through this area on their way to and from their speeches. They had cleverly nestled there. Our conversation turned to the energy of this convention. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” one said. The other nodded in agreement. Something was happening in Chicago. The old, experienced politicians at this private DNC party just offstage, laughing around us and sipping their bourbon-ginger cocktails, knew it more than anyone else.
The fire marshal agreed. When I returned to the convention hall, I learned that the city had closed the building. The United Center was packed with probably more than 21,000 people, and no one else was allowed in. “You’ve booked too many seats!” someone said. The building was packed to capacity, and the main event of the convention was at prime time.
Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican congressman from Illinois, set a major theme for the evening in one of the best-received speeches of the night: “Republicans, you belong here too, because democracy knows no party.” The thunderous reaction from the delegates confirmed how much power that idea can have in the campaign. The red carpet is rolled out – Republicans can come in. Still, I was surprised at how strange it all was – to be at the Democratic National Convention, where Republicans were greeted in an unashamedly patriotic spirit, because we all know how dangerous the Republican Party has become. There hasn’t been such a test of our political system at the ballot box since 1864. The danger is so real that it was the subject of a prime-time appeal to America’s middle class. And yet the party went on. This clash of grim reality and tumultuous celebration began to give the evening an air of surrealism for me. The surrealism is unsettling.
It would be wrong to underestimate the power of this joy in a political campaign, because it is difficult to quantify. Joy is limitless, it is expansive. Its synonym, “exuberance,” derives from an image of boiling over (ebullire). Joy is as contagious as a virus, and although it may be able to be contained for a short time, no one can really control it. Joy must be spontaneous, otherwise it is not joy. And because it is unpredictable and unreliable, joy is a weak argument for supporting a presidential campaign.
The gestures of gratitude toward Joe Biden this week reminded us of the remarkable achievement that this convention represented, and in a matter of weeks changed focus. They also reminded us that we are at the end of the beginning of the burgeoning Harris-Waltz campaign. All of this joy springs from relief that the years-long campaign that repeated the 2020 campaign—a year everyone had dreaded—is suddenly over. Joy, in this regard, springs largely because Kamala Harris is not Joe Biden. But with 75 days between the end of the convention and Election Day, the challenge of maintaining the commitment that this joy has brought Democrats depends on defining Kamala Harris herself as a candidate and national leader.
The convention was a start. But Harris’ acceptance speech made it clear that establishing Harris in this way in just 75 days will be a tall order. Much of Harris’ speech consisted of introductions and stories that would not have been necessary had she been at the top of the ballot since last year. Even more troubling, aside from all the time she devoted to introducing herself, the real star of her speech was Trump, mentioned 17 times in her 35-minute speech.
As little as it will be enough for Harris, not Bidenit also does not offer voters enough to not Trump even this late in the Trump era. Much of the evening was spent countering Trump with reminders of reproductive rights, his enthusiasm for autocrats, and Project 2025. Very little did the evening tell us what our politics might look like without Trump—apart from the joy we might feel if he were banished from public life forever. Voters will need more. They will need a good, clear idea of Kamala Harris’ vision long before November 5.
The campaign veterans I spoke with in the lounge were right — this has never happened before. Never has a candidate been replaced like this in the middle of summer, in the middle of the campaign. Never has a presidential candidate had so little time to catch up and tell us how she plans to lead the United States into our future. The challenge is much greater than it seemed in the cheery hall of Congress on August 22. The challenge should not be underestimated, no matter how much joy we feel.
As I looked down at the delegates crowded onto the floor of the United Center, I saw a snapshot of America. Every state, every territory, every race and ethnicity and every belief system had come together as strangers on Monday, August 19. By Thursday, they had become a community. A bit like a political “brigadoon,” they emerged like a village from another time. They lived in a joyful place where gun violence was curbed, reproductive freedoms secured, our basic institutions respected, and Trumpism ended. Now that their village is gone, the question remains: Did they visit us from our future or from our past?
