Forget promoting a policy platform. What is needed, according to Kamala’s campaign, is a strategy of fluffy joy and Donald Trump is bad.

One of the most striking themes of the Democratic National Convention was the way the message flipped back and forth between grim warnings that democracy is under attack and playful invitations to engage in a politics of joy. Democrats at times seemed to be attempting a tricky tightrope act, akin to inviting people to dance their way out of a burning house.

For most of the convention, the message seemed to be: Join the fight to save democracy–and let’s have some fun while we do it. It’s an audacious strategy that President Biden could have never pulled off.

Over 30,000 children who crossed the border illegally under Kamala’s watch have disappeared off the radar. Her response? Crickets. Remember, this was the person tapped to be the Border Czar and address the root causes of illegal immigration. 

A policy of fluffy joy won’t magically find those lost children. 

Every single speaker at the DNC had two themes to thump over everyone’s head. Donald Trump is BAD! And we must bring JOY to all! 

Flash-forward to this week. If the Democratic convention’s message for America had to fit on a bumper sticker, it would read, “Harris is joy.” The word has gone from being a nice descriptor of Democratic energy to being a rhetorical two-by-four thumped on voters’ heads. Don’t get me wrong — there are many worse things than joy — but I cringed a little in the convention hall Tuesday night when Bill Clinton said Kamala Harris would be “the president of joy.” “Joy” is the new “fetch” from “Mean Girls”: Democrats are bent on making the word happen.

But joy is not a political strategy. And God is not a political strategy. The good news for Democrats is that Harris seems to understand this. Americans want her to lower their household costs and make it easier to find housing. Being our joyful Momala is not going to win the election.

Kamala’s campaign is pushing those two strategies with all their might while helping her actively avoid speaking to anyone in the media. 

Bill Maher asks CNN's Kaitlan Collins how insulting it is to the press that Kamala Harris avoids the press:
Bill Maher: "What do you think about the fact that Kamala doesn't talk to the press? In a way I think it's more insulting than what Trump does. She's kind of saying: 'I… pic.twitter.com/rwUk2y8wFm

— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) August 24, 2024

The remainder of Eric’s post reads:

She’s kind of saying: ‘I don’t need you. You don’t matter. You’re not relevant anymore.’ To me that’s even worse.”
Caitlan Collins: “I do think she should talk to the press. I think anyone who wants to have access to the nuclear codes should be willing to sit down and take questions.”

Maybe Kamala would do an interview if the entire mainstream apparatus wasn’t already actively campaigning for her.

Here are two examples of the media’s assistance in covering for her.

https://twitter.com/BrentHBaker/status/1827707989270102238

Kamala is on record making very clear statements on the issues prior to her coronation as presidential candidate. But now, she has nothing to say of substance. Instead it’s platitudes and actively running away from the press. 

An odd thing to tweet about someone who won’t do an interview and has renounced all her past positions without explanation. https://t.co/n8hQnzB8jv

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) August 25, 2024

And J.D. Vance more than held his own this morning. 

The irony of NBC now taking Harris campaign marching orders that she “wasn’t the border czar” is that it was the 2021 NBC interview with Lester Hurt about her failure as border czar (and refusal to visit the border) that really blew up the issue. https://t.co/kQs6VsUzJF

— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) August 25, 2024

There’s another good reason, as pointed out by Powerline’s John Hinderaker. Kamala’s strategy of Donald Trump is BAD and fluffy joy is in place in an effort to thoroughly distance herself from the Biden Harris Administration record of failure.  

The Democrats couldn’t win if they had to run on the Biden/Harris record, and they know it. By rights, 2024 should be an easy Republican win. The Biden record is far worse than the Jimmy Carter record of 1980. So Democrats have seized on the lifeline the Republicans gave them: they are turning the election into a referendum on Donald Trump.

As such, it is a tossup. Around half the country hates Trump. They don’t care who Harris is, what her views are, or what she would do as president. She is not-Donald-Trump, and that is enough. The Democrats were smart enough to realize they needed a new candidate. The Republicans were not. The future of the republic may turn on that difference.

That’s something to think about even as we are watching an interesting political move that has rattled cages. RFK Jr’s suspension of his campaign and endorsement of Donald Trump. 

If the Democrats and Kamala are the bringers of joy, how is it that they weaponized the legal system against RFK Jr, and refused him Secret Service protection until the attempted assassination of Donald Trump?

So, why the policy of fluffy joy? Why not run on actual issues such as the economy, jobs, the border, and inflation that Americans are concerned about?

Either she doesn’t have clear ideas she would pursue, or she does — but doesn’t want the public to know what they are.

Although it’s possible she hasn’t had time to formulate detailed proposals because she was riding on Biden’s tattered coattails until recently, the cynic in me is more inclined to believe the alternative: That she’s hiding the ball because her instincts are so far loopy-left that exposure would hand the election to Trump.

And, there it is. Her instincts and policies are so far to the left that it’s likely she knows she’ll lose moderate Democrats if she says them out loud. That, and unless it’s a completely scripted speech, she ends up looking like an addled fool.

Which is why we are being treated to a political strategy of fluffy joy. 

Feature Photo: Original artwork by Victory Girls Darleen Click