An outbreak of happiness threatens to end Trumpism in America.

Joe Biden’s generosity, his realism, and his faith in America proved a gift of unimaginable value. It helped lift the country out of a dark, angry place.

Lately, I’ve been paying attention to moods. The people I talk with while I’m walking my dog. People on the bus and the el. People I see at meetings. People in line at the pharmacy. It’s a diverse crowd, not just ethnically, but economically. We all carry our own burdens, and life is not always easy. And yet, what I’ve seen lately can only be described as a national outbreak of happiness.

Not since before COVID have Americans felt this much optimism. In place of anger and helplessness, people feel like they can make a difference-- in their own lives and in the arc of our nation’s history.

A good portion of the credit goes to Joe Biden. The country is, by every measure, better than it was four years ago. The pandemic is in the rear-view mirror. The carnage to our economy has been cleaned up. People are working and getting paid more too. But those changes only prepared us for this moment. What inspired the rapid elevation of our spirits was the simple fact that our president put our country ahead of his own ambitions. That act lifted Americans out of the dark and angry place we’ve been in for too long.

I don’t think it can be said enough: in a time when nearly everyone thinks the worst of people in politics, Joe Biden’s generosity, his realism, and his faith in America proved a gift of unimaginable value. And we understood it in deeply personal ways. So many of us know the gut-wrenching decisions that people must make as they age. They are always difficult. Less often are the graceful. Yet Joe Biden decided he would decline the nomination that was his to take, because it was better for us. And in that moment, Americans knew their president loved them.

They say time and tide wait for no man. Joe had the grace to see this before he overstayed, and now will be able to finish his term strong and leave it to historians to tell us what we have been too grumpy to see.  He will be remembered as among our greatest Presidents.

If time did not wait for Joe, the tide is now sweeping away Donald Trump and the MAGA world view. That tide now has a name: Kamala Harris.

Joe told us he saw something great in Kamala. Now our country is seeing it too. She took the stage and proved herself to be a talented, tireless, and joyous campaigner. Recall that only ten days ago, the triumphalist banners of autocracy were on the march. The GOP Convention adopted a platform that is just a version of Project 2025 written for fifth graders. They cheered a VP candidate with bizarre views that are antithetical to the idea that we are all created equal. They spoke of their nominee as destined by God to rule over us.  No more. Within just a few weeks, they are in full retreat.

None of this means Democrats will win in November. But an outbreak of happiness is exactly the medicine to cure us of the party of American carnage. A renewed sense of our own ability to lean into the wind and move the country forward is not just so American, it is also poisonous to the idea that we need to do as we are told.  

If you haven’t yet felt the joy all around you, there’s an easy fix. Just join in a campaign for any Democrat at any level, in any state. You will quickly see that you matter. You make a difference. And someday, you will tell your children and grandchildren that you were part of the fight that kept American ideals alive in the world.