The Incoherence of Joy

So there's a recession on, one that is likely to get worse for at least a year or two. What's the plan for that? There isn't one, a fact even the New York Times has begun to notice.

It is impossible to make a similar estimate for Vice President Kamala Harris, Mr. Trump’s Democratic opponent this fall. She has not laid out any tax or spending plans, or other economic policy proposals, with enough detail to estimate whether they would add to deficits or reduce them.

In fact there aren't any plans at all, and all of the old positions are recanted.

Ms. Harris, who began seeking the Democratic nomination late last month immediately after Mr. Biden stepped aside and endorsed her, has no policy proposals posted on her campaign website — economic or otherwise.

The media has settled upon a new idea, whose unity of expression shows that it is clearly coordinated with her campaign: she is the candidate of joy!

But she was selling herself as a prosecutor, remember? There's nothing joyful about prosecution. Alongside executioners, prosecutors wield the hammer of the state against members of the public. It is to be hoped that this is done in the interest of justice (as it manifestly was not in her case, as Tulsi Gabbard pointed out). It is not a happy job, however.

I suppose this makes sense to the media because they feel joyful when contemplating four years of being governed by a prosecutor like her. Too, there's a kind of sense to the promise that if only she's elected the media will do its best to fill our screens with joy instead of the rage, bitterness, and anger that will be our daily bread from them if we don't listen.

Still, it's another astonishing maneuver, akin to the earlier attempt to sell us on the basis that she's a career professional politician -- akin to a practiced surgeon. 

Obviously the election isn't really about any of this, because none of this makes any sense. I can't decide if they're doing this because they can't think of anything better, or if they're so sure of the election's 'fortification' that they don't feel they need to run a real campaign. You'll find out what our economic policies are after the election, peasants.