As many times as The Simpsons has eerily predicted the future—including, of course, Donald Trump’s presidency—it’s also diagnosed the present with trenchant clarity.
In 1994, for instance, the same year Democrats failed to push through healthcare reform but succeeded in passing a notoriously problematic crime bill, The Simpsons made a devastating critique of the party. In a fifth-season episode called “Bart Gets an Elephant,” the titular elephant goes on a rampage through Springfield, where somehow both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions are simultaneously underway.
The RNC is a palace of utter jubilance, balloons raining from above as “The Stars and Stripes Forever” crescendos. Undercutting the otherwise flattering depiction are twin banners that read: “We want what’s worst for everyone” and “We’re just plain evil.” Harsh! But that’s only the setup for the real joke.
A moment later, the elephant enters the more muted DNC, to scads of boos from the crowd, and a corresponding pair of banners reads: “We hate life and ourselves” and “We can’t govern!” This joke has haunted Democrats for the past 30 years.
Those banners created a succinct template for noting whenever Dems came across, to some folks, as a party whose main selling point was, “At least we’re not Republicans!”
But while that portrayal may have been an elephant in the room during previous conventions, it’s nowhere to be seen now. Instead, when detractors have tweeted those banners during this DNC, the critique feels woefully stuck in the past. The opposite of hating life is joy and the opposite of an inability to govern is supreme competence, and this convention is dripping with both.
In many ways, the 2020 convention was the epitome of what The Simpsons joke represented—even if it wasn’t entirely the Dems’ fault. The early-pandemic safety precaution of going mostly virtual partly explains why it felt devoid of palpable enthusiasm. But candidate Joe Biden had struggled in that department throughout the entire election, with an enthusiasm gap that saw only 40% of his supporters eager to vote for him, compared with 68% for Trump and his supporters.
The Biden campaign’s overwhelming emphasis during the DNC on defeating Trump in a “battle for the soul of the nation” is what made it feel more dreary than uplifting or inspiring. When the youthful, extremely popular Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez threatened to inject some energy into the proceedings, her speech ended up limited to just 60 seconds.
This year’s convention, though, feels less like a battle for America’s soul than a party in the USA. In its first few nights, the DNC has marked a full-scale culmination of the vibe shift that began when President Biden dropped out and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris four weeks ago.
When joy is more than a buzzword
Joy has been a running theme in the campaign since Harris took the reins. During her first week of tag-teaming rallies with her VP pick, Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, her running mate thanked Harris for choosing him, before adding: “But maybe more so, thank you for bringing back the joy.”
Harris has since described herself as a “joyful warrior,”—a phrase her husband, Doug Emhoff, echoed during a fawning and deeply personalizing DNC speech on Tuesday night, after which he may have become the nation’s foremost Wife Guy.
But “joy” isn’t just a buzzword that campaign surrogates have been throwing around. It’s crackling through the very air in Chicago’s United Center, where the convention is being held.
Just look at the rollicking roll call on Tuesday night, where an in-house DJ gave each state its own custom musical interlude. California had homegrown artists Tupac Shakur and Kendrick Lamar, Stevie Nicks represented her home state of Arizona, and Atlanta’s own Lil Jon emerged at the convention during Georgia’s introduction to perform “Turn Down for What.”
Compare the electricity of the crowd during Lil Jon’s performance with the try-hard cringe of the 1996 DNC’s infamous “Macarena” moment. (Anyone desiring just a little soupçon of that cringe, though, need only look at Chuck Schumer’s mercifully brief podium dance. Or maybe that was an endearingly grandpa-like show of joy? Eye of the beholder.)
Joy could also be felt in the Harris-led tendency to keep doom-and-gloom talk about her opponent to a minimum. Barack Obama didn’t go deep on the threat to democracy that Trump poses, as he did in his previous convention speech. Instead, the former president excoriated Trump’s character, at one point making a brazen but PG-rated anatomical joke, before moving on to praise Harris’s character and Walz’s closet. He was just following the tone set by the previous night’s Law & Order parody about Trump’s criminal activity.
Yes we can—govern
Beyond all the jokes and music and general loosening of norms, the convention has had an air of competence about it throughout. Sure, it’s standard for speakers like Michelle Obama to gush eloquently about the candidate’s qualifications, but a broader message of competence has been subtly apparent all week—articulated in the convention’s deft production and execution.
Up until four weeks ago, the DNC was supposed to be tailored to an entirely different candidate. And in that short span, the convention team managed impressive feats such as Harris and Walz appearing live onscreen from a packed arena in Milwaukee—pointedly, the site of this year’s RNC—to deliver a post-roll-call greeting at the convention. The logistics and crack timing it must have taken to pull that off seamlessly are staggering.
A convention that runs this smoothly, and during such unprecedented circumstances, suggests not only unity, but adaptability and resilience. While the race is still close, Democrats are finally acting like a party that won’t be waking up on November 6 saying, “D’oh.”
Perhaps it’s time for The Simpsons writers to start brainstorming some fresh banners.