Democrats under Joe Biden looked set to fail in this year’s United States presidential election. Mr Biden’s frailty was exposed, and hope was draining.
Democrats were dispirited. Their primary emotion, the trump they played, was fear about Republican candidate Donald Trump. He encouraged the January 6 Capitol insurrection. His authoritarian manner and instincts threatened democracy itself.
Fear is a powerful political passion. Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and her party, no doubt, will continue that attack line.
Mr Trump himself uses fear of immigrants, "communists" and progressives, among others, in line with populists the world over.
New Zealand has its iterations. National’s and Prime Minister Robert Muldoon’s "dancing Cossacks" advertisement in 1975 is infamous. Labour’s compulsory superannuation, it was implied, would lead the country to Soviet-style socialism. National won that year’s election in a landslide.
What a difference a month makes. The Democrats concluded their national convention in Chicago with surging enthusiasm as they celebrated their theme of "joy". The Kamalamania parallels the Jacindamania that accompanied Jacinda Ardern’s late entry as Labour leader before the 2017 New Zealand election.
Ms Harris is in the throes of a euphoric honeymoon phase, and momentum has been created. Riding the bandwagon promotes support and excitement.
Cleverly Ms Harris also chose "coach" Tim Walz as her running mate. He provides contrasting optics and exudes folksy positivity. He elicits reassuring and comforting sentiments.
Voters respond to more than fear. They are buoyed by feeling good and hopeful. Former National prime minister John Key had the knack of engendering positivity. Voters sometimes punish those who are too negative.
Mr Trump is about more than fear and abuse. He creates pride in citizens who feel excluded from what they see as a woke world run by professional, media and political elites. He delivers — in particular to a large cohort of older and rural white men — praise, reassurance and self-respect.
No wonder supporters cheer him to the clouds at Maga rallies. His barefaced alternative facts blatantly exhort emotion. Logic and reason, except of the most perverse kind, are conspicuously absent.
Hillary Clinton was armed with copious exhaustive policy papers when she lost to Mr Trump eight years ago. Ms Harris has avoided the nitty-gritty. Soundbites and generalities have become more common in recognition of electorate receptivity.
Labor in Australia provides a clear example. It lost one election after crossing just about all its t’s. It won the next, in 2022, on policies without anything like the same depth and breadth of detail.
Ms Harris will face rising pressure for more specificity. Her references on Palestine, for example, were too general for many on an issue that jeopardises party cohesion. She will be questioned on policy flips — like on fracking and Medicare for All — as she has made herself more acceptable to a broader audience.
Her tactic will be to avoid too much explaining, encouraging supporter and electorate emotion instead.
The Democrats, in a sharply polarised nation where a relative handful of votes in battleground states will decide the election, need to achieve two outcomes. They must convince and enable potential supporters among the young and minorities to cast their ballots. And they need to sway a majority of that small number of swing voters in those swing states.
In doing so, the vibe, the mood and the energy will be far more important than logic and rationality.
