Won't you be my neighbor?

It doesn’t take much, does it? That’s been the surprising lesson of the Democratic National Convention. It just doesn’t take much to breathe new life into a party that, only six weeks ago, felt as moribund as its previous leader. Given its overuse, the word “joy” has stopped sparking joy in me, but the trope of the Happy Warrior is proving to be a formidable weapon against Donald Trump’s Chicken Little campaign.

The sky is always falling in Donald Trump’s world. Murderers and knaves wait around every street corner, dark hordes are invading the border and burning down our cities, the streets run with the blood of Christians forced to use they/them pronouns. It’s American carnage out there, people, and only one flabby crook/rapist can fix it.

The Democratic Party is showing another side of America, beginning with a word we heard a lot over the last few days: neighbors. In the Harris/Walz campaign “loving thy neighbor” is more than a biblical commandment unread by their opponents; it’s a policy plank. In his speech last night, Walz talked about neighbors:

Growing up in a small town like that, you learn how to take care of each other. That family down the road, they may not think like you do, they may not pray like you do. They may not love like you do. But they’re your neighbors. And you look out for them. And they look out for you. Everybody belongs. And everybody has a responsibility to contribute.

He’s like Mr. Rogers in a camo cap.

Coach Walz will feed your fish and jump your car. All he asks for in return is you study hard for your geography quiz. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/AP)

Consider the message from the other side, in which the family next door is threatening to put porn in your school library, ruin your daughter’s sporting career, and burn the neighborhood to the ground if you wish them a Merry Christmas.

Policy follows politicking. The Harris/Walz campaign has been somewhat short on actual policy papers, but long on policy aspirations. Feeding people, housing people, helping people. Continuing the Biden economic project of building the economy from the middle out and the bottom up, a strategy which has set the American economy on the strongest post covid recovery in the world.

Contrast the Harris/Walz campaign with the Biden/Harris campaign, in which they chose to meet Donald on his own home field, which is located somewhere in Mordor. It’s a place of brimstone and taco-scented hellsmoke, where Trump gets to define himself as a tough leader making tough decisions in a tough world. Harris has flipped the script. Now Trump comes across like one of those high schoolers too old to be trick-or-treating wearing a cheap store-bought monster mask. Rather than scaring anybody, his neighbors respond with a pat on the head and a mini Kit Kat. “Aren’t you adorable?” they seem to ask before shutting the door on his face while he complains about how nasty you are for not dumping your entire candy bowl into his bag.

The 2024 presidential campaign has become light vs. dark. Optimism vs. pessimism. Hope vs. despair. I guess it wasn’t until the Obamas spoke two nights ago that I finally understood the genius of the Harris/Walz strategy. For eight years, we’ve been beaten over the head with the unique threat that Donald Trump poses to the nation, the dangerous cult of personality hypnotizing a nation of downtrodden blue-collar workers and malignant personality types.

Of course, the truth has always been more nuanced. Much of the Trump support has come, not from the dispossessed, but from well-off whites who will stick it to the poors if it means they keep an extra thirty-five cents a month, along with the same billionaire class currently propping up his campaign with the expectation that he will fulfill his promises to cut their taxes, eliminate regulations on worker safety, the climate, etc. They may dislike him personally but they understand how malleable he will be when the check they cut is large enough.

The Dems also have their billionaire class donors with their own demands and I don’t expect the Harris/Walz campaign to turn their back on such people. However, the Biden/Harris policy record offers a real contrast with the previous administration. We can expect continued attention to healthcare access and further reductions in the costs of prescription drugs. We can expect women’s reproductive healthcare to be codified on a national level. We can expect public schools to receive the full-throated support of the national government. We can expect competent foreign policy leaders to manage our complicated relationships with allies and adversaries, perhaps with fewer love notes to Kim Jung-Un. We can expect American workers to receive more of a fair shake. What we can expect, I think, overall, is for the lives of average Americans to get better. Maybe not by a lot, but some. The government isn’t going to clean the lint trap in your dryer or buy you a winning lottery ticket.

But when I look at the vision of Harris/Walz contrasted against a Trump/Vance America in which the richest Americans have been promised further tax cuts and in which millions of our neighbors are being threatened with police round-ups and mass deportation; where our neighbors will be prevented by their government to receive the healthcare they need - and access to that healthcare will be curtailed – an America in which people get meaner and more suspicious of each other, an America in which our diversity is viewed as a threat rather than a strength; that’s an America I cannot abide.

Under one administration, my neighbors’ lives will get incrementally better. Under the other, some of my neighbors’ lives might be destroyed.

I have said time and again that I don’t give a shit about any particular political candidate. Joe Biden didn’t nurse my kids. Tim Walz never pushed me out of a snowbank. Kamala didn’t fix my roof. I don’t care about them as people except insomuch as they seem like good folks. What I care about are the ideals they claim to represent, backed by evidence that they walk the walk. They’re not perfect, but neither are We the People. We don’t need perfection. We need competence. Are they competent? Yes. Are they qualified? Yes. Do their words match their actions? More often than not, I think they do.

Would they make good neighbors?

I can tell you this, they’re certainly better neighbors than me. I’m not bringing anybody hot dish. I barely saying hello to the people on my block.. But I try to be decent to everybody and I want that decency in my political leaders. Everybody’s got a neighbor who thinks the sky is always falling. The difference between our neighbors who believe that and a President who does is that, with my neighbor, I can stop and smile politely and tell them to have a good day, knowing that the sky is just fine. When a President with a black Sharpie and a suitcase full of nukes says the same thing, it’s time to lock the doors and windows.