This election is about more than two very different ideologies. It's about two very different moods: joy vs. rage.
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Former President Trump sees fear as the primary motivator — fear of illegal immigration, crime, inflation, a declining America. He believes swing voters will embrace his darker view and demand protection, even if they don't love his style.
Vice President Harris sees hope (or conflict exhaustion) as the primary motivator — hope to move beyond Trump and fighting, hope in a rising/rebounding America. She believes voters are tired of doom-and-gloom.
Obama famously wrapped his campaigns around hope and change. It worked. This helps explain why Harris has dropped President Biden's central obsession with threats to democracy for more hopeful, future-focused messaging — including a new rallying cry: "We're not going back."
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"There's a large segment of America that does acknowledge things are tough out there," veteran GOP pollster Frank Luntz told Axios. "But they're tired of getting yelled at, and they're tired of gloom and doom. And they want hope rather than blame."
"Trump is not a good news bear candidate — he's a bad news bear candidate," Luntz added. "He's going to be negative no matter what. But you have to be credible in your attacks."
"He's going to be negative no matter what": That is so KEY. It doesn't matter that: 1) America is the dream country of people worldwide. To Trumpie, it's third world. It's "dying". 2) The American economy is the strongest in the world. To Trumpie, "The stock market is CRASHING Unemployment is RISING"
Zoom in: Watch Harris' early events with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and you'll see — and hear — their shared obsession with seeming and sounding joyous, bullish, fun-loving.
"The one thing I will not forgive [Republicans] for is they try to steal the joy from this country," Walz declared at a rally in Detroit. "But you know what? Our next president brings the joy. She emanates the joy."
The other side: Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), Trump's running-mate, captured the GOP's frustrations with the "joyful warrior" narrative when asked this week: "What makes you happy?"
"I smile at a lot of things — including bogus questions from the media, man," Vance responded to a reporter in Michigan.
"I think most people in our country, they can be happy-go-lucky sometimes and enjoy things sometimes — and turn on the news and recognize what's going on in this country is a disgrace."
