A theory of Joy in politics

Or: why joy is the flipside of weird

My Australian roots were flaring during the telecast of the Democratic National Convention. The American propensity to cheer and clap and chant after, seemingly, every sentence uttered from the podium just about drove me insane over the course of last week. I often wished that the orgasming audience would shut up for a few minutes. For a few consecutive sentences.

In the next breath, though, I found myself admiring their enthusiasm. Wishing our political class could muster an equivalent zeal. Any level of positivity.

Commentators like Leigh Sales miss the point of what was happening in Chicago when they write tut-tutting pieces like this dismissing the whole Convention as lacking in substance. For one thing, such criticism misses the concerted, laser-focussed attack on Trump and his team that is an essential part of any strategy to beat the Trump-controlled Republican Party. Which in turn misses the point that, when you have a wannabe authoritarian, anti-democratic fascist like Trump o…