Aug 7, 2024 8 min read

Why America's Electrified By Kamala And Tim

Elizabeth Frantz

America’s electrified. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have infused the country with a new energy, and that’s what we’re going to discuss today. What it really means, where it came from, why it resonates, and why it matters.

Let’s begin with that last one. Right now, we’re seeing something remarkable—juddering, tremendous, sudden, double digit swings in crucial polls. Independent voters, young people, swing states. All of these are roaring with approval. We almost never see swings this large, this sudden, this fast. It’s like watching a patient literally come back to life, the heart finding a rhythm again. When I say “America’s electrified,” then, I’m not kidding. Harris and Walz are literally resuscitating democracy before our eyes.

But how have they pulled off this most improbable of challenges?

By now, it’s a meme and a joke. They’re “Mom” and “Dad.” Tim Walz has BDE…Big Dad Energy. Kamala, for her part, is maternal in a fierce way. Gen Z will openly say things like they’re the parents we wished we had, never had, after losing the real ones to Fox News. That’s a lot to say, and to take in.

What does all this mean? Is it just hysteria? It’s clearly euphoria, but is there more to it? I think there is, and that it goes really deep. It’s working against fascism for a very good reason, and to understand that reason, we have to grasp the psychoanalytical roots of leadership. Don’t worry, that’s a mouthful, but I’m going to explain it in Plain English.

What are Kamala and Tim doing? Really doing? Think of her infectious laugh. Think of his cheesy, dopey dad grin. Think of her unabashed awkward mom-style dancing. Think of the way he makes…dad jokes about the fascists. And then we all…grin and giggle.

What’s going on there? Something deep, intense, and a little bit strange and wonderful.

Kamala and Tim are teaching America how to hope again.

I don’t mean that the way you think I probably do. In a cheesy way, an artificial, and a superficial, way. That is, they’re merely mouthing words of hope. I don’t mean that at all.

I mean that they’re modeling hope. What being a hopeful person is, looks like, feels like, giving us the room to be those people, which is a crucial role of parental figures, and I’ll come back to that, but first—modeling hope. I don’t mean, again: they’re saying hopeful things. This goes way beyond, and deeper into the soul, than that. They’re modeling hope.

What’s a hopeful person? What do they do? They smile. They laugh. They hug. They dance, grin, joke. Those are the behaviors that represent an inner state, in this case, hope. To put it differently, a person without much hope doesn’t do any of that—if you’re depressed, you sulk, pout, or maybe you’re numb, angry, or morose. The point is that they’re modeling hope, not just talking about it. They’re out they’re practicing it, if you like, and that’s…

Sort of a Big Deal.

Why? Let’s think about what it is that parents—good parents, anyways—do. Their fundamental task is to model hope for their kids. They teach their kids the ways in which mature senses of hope exist. And they create the room for those mature of forms of hope to emerge. They do that, in turn, by creating a sense of safety, of calm, of possibility—which aren’t crucially, invulnerability, superpowers, fairy tales. The mature, human sense of hope is laced through with the vulnerability of the broken heart in every parent, who knows how fragile a child is.

So. Good parents model hope for their kids. They teach them not to give up, not to let life’s ups and downs shatter them, that it’s OK, and necessary, and wise, and just, to hope for people to love, and to love you back, for a modicum of material success, for respect earned the right way, for dignity, for meaning, purpose, truth, beauty, goodness. And in an imperfect world, still riddled through with history’s follies, mistakes, hatred, regrets, injustices—that’s no small task. When we teach people to hope, we are undertaking the moral challenge of a lifetime.

Because in every human soul, this process can go badly wrong, too.

Now. What’s fascism? Fascism is what happens when hope—the mature kind—curdles, degenerates, twists in on itself, and becomes it’s opposite. Fatalism. Nihilism. Hope: it’s about construction. What we can give, not just what we take. Who we are, in the universal sense. What we can become, achieve, do, hold. That comes from the mature sense of our limitations. No human arms can hold the whole universe—and yet we try, accepting suffering.

Hope comes to us from good parents. Fascism is the opposite. It is hopelessness, that’s seized upon by the figure of poor parents, who are themselves neglected children in disguise. What’s Trump? If Tim Walz is now America’s Dad, then Trump is America’s Authoritarian Father.

And there is a world of difference between those two things. A “Dad” is someone who loves you more than anything in the world, no matter your mistakes, foibles, follies, flaws, and he’s willing to sacrifice everything, for you, right down to the bad jokes and oversized sneakers. But an Authoritarian Father is someone you please. Who doesn’t accept you. And instead demands loyalty from you. In exchange for safety, from a hostile world—even if that sense of safety is abusive, twisted, and toxic.

See how these things are related now? If you do, you begin to understand the power in what America sees in Kamala and Tim now. They are transcending fascist archetypes. The Authoritarian Father—the ultimate fascist parental figure. That’s Trump, of course—what’s the allure of such an archetype? Superpowers, in short. Omnipotence. Omniscience, even, maybe. Some Trumpists, maybe a lot of them, actually “believe this,” this set of fairy tales, which is what makes it all feel like such a cult.

In Tim, America has a Dad. At long last. In Kamala, something like a Mom. Not just an Authoritarian Father. And those are more powerful archetypes because they’re transcendent, and to make sense of that, just ask yourself, which one would you rather have? Transcendent means: these are figures which accept you as you are, limited, frail, little, and offer you something truer and nobler and more meaningful than the mere fairy tale of omnipotence.

What’s that thing? Love. These figures can love you. The Authoritarian Father can do many things, or at least promise to, all kinds of pyrotechnics, in fact, defeating the subhumans, demons, devils, and all the rest of the fascist fairy tale. But what they can never do is love you. Not in the sense we all need to be loved, which is for the bittersweet truth of the frail things we are, so easily hurt, mortal, children of time and dust.

That is why America’s electrified. See how deep it goes? And yet it goes deeper still. Let me finish with a little observation.

America’s a society that’s long needed a Father and a Mother. And in its desperate search for them, it’s settled, as societies often do, for twisted substitutes, like Authoritarians and Fascists and Theocrats. But why do I say that—or why is it now so visibly obvious, given this emotional explosion—that America’s needed these figures?

Because over the years, it’s become a brutal society. Surviving is hard. Social bonds have broken down. People have fewer and fewer friends. Just making a living’s become difficult. Life can be lonely, bitter, brutal, and bleak. At the same time, America isn’t a society that’s matured, the way that others have. Canada and Europe grew beyond adolescence into the early adulthood of social democracy—America never did. There it is, trapped in high school, competitive, full of energy, true, but hurting, deep inside, unable to understand how to grow beyond this stage of development, and enter adulthood.

That’s hard to do without parents. And it’s doubly hard when you’ve had a traumatic childhood, maybe even a neglected one, which is what America’s had, if we’re honest. From slavery to segregation, America’s childhood hasn’t been easy, which is why it’s stuck in adolescence. And that adolescence, weirdly, is reflected in its sort of obsession with youth, the way that elders have been disappeared for too long, the way that its values are those we associate with adolescence, too, not the patience and humility and acceptance that come as we grow past adulthood into old age.

So. America’s needed parents. Because it’s been stuck in this adolescent phase, and longing to grow beyond it, but unsure just how to. And stuck in that adolescence, it’s become prey for any number of figures looking to exploit it, whether Creepy Old Men, like Trump, or the Boy Geniuses of Silicon Valley. Doesn’t matter—the point is that when such a deep inner need goes unmet, there will be a search for guidance and protection and safety in all the wrong places. And that’s kind of what’s been stopping America, too.

Some people will ready all the above through the lens of old-school American thinking, and call it “paternalistic” or what have you. That’s not really relevant here—I’m speaking psychoanalytically, not politically. I’m not saying that Kamala and Tim should make you choices for you, that’s what Trump and Vance want to do: Authoritarian Fathers are, after all, the ultimate paternalists. So the way that we think in America, too, is adolescent, and needs to mature.

Kamala and Tim are teaching America how to hope again. Not in their words, but in the behaviors, actions, they model. They are teaching America to be-in-the-world in a different way, if you like. How do you “be-in-the-world”? Every society has its own way. So does every politics. America’s has gone astray in recent history. Trump’s way of being-in-the-world is fascist: scorn, hate, violence, rage. Nihilism, fatalism, destruction. Kamala and Tim are teaching Americans to be-in-the-world in a hopeful way again, and that doesn’t mean mouthing words of hope, it means being hopeful.

In a mature, adult way. Yes, we can relate to one another, despite our differences. Yes, we can come together to solve our problems. We must, because in the end, we are all flawed, little, small things, mortal, wounded. This, right here, right now, is all we have, this moment, this place, this society, this chance. Laugh. Smile. Breathe. Hug. We are here together, and that matters. In that, there beats one heart, which is called hope. Hope is the expression that human possibility can realize itself, not me taking from yours you, but each shoulder resting against the next.

In this, it feels as if something beautiful, powerful, and different is happening. That’s because there is. This is a profound shift. In philosophy, in unconscious thinking, in being-in-the-world. This is Big, in other words. Americans are being introduced to a new way of being in the world, by a set of good parents, who are modeling, at last, not violence, shame, guilt, terror, or fear, but hope.

And that is a loving thing.

How long has it been since America had leaders who really loved it, in this deep way, the way of the soul and the wound, the rose and the cross, the ocean and the cry? How long has it been since Americans felt loved for who they are, not just shamed for who they aren’t? You can judge that for yourself. But seeing the emotional explosion? I’d say the answer is: longer than most of us can remember.

Good parents hold us. And in that moment, they teach us: even in the moment of despair, especially in that moment, we carry with us, always, the ember called hope. In this, the universe rests inside each of us, flowing like a great river, through our mortality and finitude. We transmit that teaching down through the generations, and that is called goodness, beauty, truth, and civilization. The embrace answers the cry.

There is nothing in all of life more powerful and beautiful than this lesson, and for those unlucky enough not to have had it, lifetimes can be spent trapped in the despair of an eternal childhood, maturity just always out of reach.

So America’s lucky. Mom and Dad are here. Right in the nick of time.

All of that, if you really grasp it? It’s why Trump looks not just old, but done. Out of…power. Because, like I said, and you should know by now: love transcends all.

❤️ Don't forget...