Joy and the Presidential Election

A political leader from Minnesota arrived on the national scene with a message of joy, hope, and equality.

He grew up in the rural Midwest and became a teacher after he moved to Minnesota. Known as the “happy warrior,” he made civil rights, the health and nutrition of school children, and support for the underprivileged centerpieces of his policy work. When our country and the world was staring at the rise of fascism, he was a patriot who volunteered three times for military service. At the beginning of his campaign for national office, he said: “Here we are, just as we ought to be, here we are, the people, here we are the spirit of dedication, here we are the way politics ought to be in America, the politics of happiness, politics of purpose, politics of joy; and that's the way it's going to be, all the way, too, from here on out. We seek an America able to preserve and nurture all the basic rights of free expression, yet able to reach across the divisions that too often separate race from race, region from region, young from old, worker from scholar, rich from poor. We seek an America able to do this in the higher knowledge that our goals and ideals are worthy of conciliation and personal sacrifice.” In a Washington DC speech when he served in Congress, he had said "it was once said that the moral test of Government is how that Government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped." Sometimes, we need to search through our past to claim our future. The politics of purpose – justice and equality for all. The politics of happiness – optimism about our future. The politics of joy – the inclusion of everyone – gay, straight, trans, bi, people with disabilities, elders, kids, people of color, immigrants, everyone! – in our society. There have been other politicians who have channeled optimism about the promise and potential of our great nation. And made us feel good about ourselves. Ronald Reagan comes to mind. John F. Kennedy, too. And Barack Obama. But that political leader was not one of these men. It was Hubert Humphrey, our Vice-President from 1965 until 1969. And in Tim Walz, another down-to-earth, Midwest politician it seems that we have found yet another happy warrior. And in the nick of time. In the last decade, the people of our nation – especially but not just young people – have become increasingly alienated, depressed, and anxious. That sense of alienation from government is something that Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders both channeled back in 2016. While most of their political positions were miles apart, the engagement they facilitated often came from people who were deeply concerned that the interests of a powerful, selfish few were being protected at the expense of the needs of the many. But the failure of the government to counterbalance those selfish interests and the devastation of the pandemic harmed us so deeply that we no longer celebrated our economic recovery from that pandemic. We couldn’t. Because we hadn’t recovered mentally. Depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia all increased, and within year or two so did suicides and deaths from drug overdoses – two of the leading causes of death for those with serious mental illnesses. For a long time, it seemed as if we were doomed to tough it out for another four years, hoping that eventually the anger would dissipate. But then, out of the blue, Kamala Harris came along with an abundance of joy and said it’s time to look forward again – just as Kennedy, Reagan, and Obama did. And then she found our next happy warrior – Tim Walz. I don’t know what the outcome of this election will be. But I am sure of one thing. We long for leaders today who can feel and project happiness and joy to remind us that it’s okay for the rest of us to be happy, too. We need it for our mental health. We are not going to recover from the real traumas of the last decade overnight. But lately the journey feels a little easier, easier perhaps than it has been for sixty years.