https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/kamala-harris-tim-walz-interview-cnn-1236120141/
There was something going on at the Democratic National Convention that transcended politics. There was laughter, smiles, jokes, a son crying with happiness about his candidate “Dad,” and the power of singing that lit up the speakers and the people attending.
This gave birth to the “politics of joy” and the identity of Kamala Harris as the “president of Joy.”
This spirit of joy is delight in each other, in our country, in our possibilities, while remaining clearsighted about the dangers we face.
This is a spirit of joy that moves. It is what the African American church has known for so long. Without rejoicing you are not going to make it through.
Many of us are looking for light and hope in contrast to the darkness of recent years. Darkness is how Pete Buttigeig, Transportation Secretary, defined it. Buttigieg said Trump and Vance were "committing to a concept of campaigning that's summed up in one word: darkness. Darkness is what they are selling."
The years of the pandemic are part of that darkness and how that fed isolation and despair. It has also been fed by the extreme negativity about this country trumpeted by the Right.
Many people, by contrast, are longing for something else in their lives that moves them beyond despair.
But they are not looking to organized religion for that.
The white evangelical support for Trump has continued and it is highly correlated with church attendance. The more often white evangelical voters attend church, the more likely they are to identify as Republican. Per Pew Research, less than 48% of white evangelical voters who “Never” attend church are Republicans, while nearly 73% of those who attend more than once a week identify that way.
The idea that going to church equals supporting Trump has alienated large numbers of other Americans. Organized religion seems synonymous with being in political cult.
That is a big reason why more than a quarter of Americans have come to identify themselves as “spiritual but not religious,” religious meaning organized religion.
The “spiritual but not religious” tend to be younger. They are turned off by their parents’ religion and what seems its narrow worldview.
I believe this is a moment when that “spiritual” designation can come more into focus and highlight what is happening now.
Spiritual power is often confused with the supernatural. The spiritual is not, in fact, “out of this world,” but very much in it. It is “breath” and “life” per ancient Hebrew.
Joy in this moment, in this rising from the darkness into the light, can define a new kind of politics that lifts people up and invites them into community.
Spiritual power can grow exponentially especially if it is fed and nurtured.
I truly believe we are in a new day in this country. As Amanda Gorman, poet and activist, who shared a spoken word poem at the DNC so beautifully phrased it:
Only now approaching this rare air / are we aware / that perhaps the American dream is no dream at all / but instead a dare / to dream together.