In Pixar’s great film “Inside Out,” the personification of Joy (played by Amy Poehler), spends most of the movie learning a hard lesson: that Riley, the pre-teen girl who she’s a part of, needs access to the feeling of Sadness (played by Phyllis Smith) because, as Joy marvels at the end, when Riley was in trouble, people “came to help because of Sadness.” The film has been described, aptly, as a meditation on the idea of toxic positivity, ie the pressure to stay happy no matter what, which prevents people from coping with their circumstances.

It is appropriate, therefore, that Kamala Harris’ idea-free campaign (literally, there’s no policy page on her website at all) has resorted to invoking the concept of “joy” as their campaign theme. In what should be a record for irony (and gall), Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY) told The Hill that Harris and her running mate Tim Walz are “the happy warriors that are out there fighting a good cause. … It’s not about personal character destruction or having to tear someone down.” To which we only have two responses:

Firstly, no character destruction? Really? This from the campaign that has resorted to calling its opponents “weird” like the sociopathic Queen Bee Regina George in Mean Girls (someone who their own supporter Megan Thee Stallion openly admires)? This from the campaign that has been doing its damnedest, through the captured media, to paint Trump’s vice-presidential selection J.D. Vance as a closet Nazi (even as actual antisemites flock to the Left)? Yeah. Sure. Whatever.

But secondly, and more importantly, okay, you say they’re happy warriors. Some of us remember when Republicans always used to demand that in their politicians, until 2008 and 2012 came along and that presentation ran into an obvious question: If you’re a happy warrior, then what, exactly, are you happy about?

That’s not a rhetorical question. We genuinely want to know. What, exactly, does Kamala Harris have to be happy about, besides the fact that she gets to run for president without the indignity of a primary? What part of the current administration – in which, you’ll recall, she’s the number two leader – is she happy about? The stock market crashing? Record high border crossings? Inflation getting so consistently bad that experts are now forecasting a recession? A former president being shot because his Secret Service detail acts like the cast of Big Brother? Crime spiking? Anemic job growth? Their own infrastructure projects melting down to the tune of $84 billion? Seriously, Democrats: what possible on-the-ground reality suggests that “joy” is the appropriate response right now?

To be clear, the problem isn’t that this campaign theme is contentless, though it is. Barack Obama won two terms on the back of “hope” and “change,” which had about as much definition as the average Antifa protester’s arms. But the thing about “hope” and “change” is that they at least acknowledge the emotional reality which most voters felt in 2008 and 2012. After all, you don’t need “hope” when things are good, and you don’t want “change” unless the status quo isn’t working. The genius of Obama’s slogans was that, in acknowledging that voters needed hope and change, they allowed the voters’ imaginations to fill in whatever their definition of positive change was when pulling the lever for the Obama campaign. Granted, for most people, that turned out to be something quite different from what Obama had in mind, but by the time he was president, it was too late.

Does “joy” work the same way? Well, again, what do the voters have to be happy about? We know what Kamala’s most partisan supporters have to be happy about – the fact that they get to vote for the cool wine aunt who has #brat vibes and also isn’t being visibly mummified before our eyes unlike their last candidate – but come on, how much pull does that version of happiness have beyond TikTok and Mrs. Frazzled? The problem with “joy” is that it invites every voter who’s sitting at their kitchen table trying to make ends meet and realizing they’re buying less for more money to take one look at Kamala’s gyrating, contentless vibes campaign and wonder, perhaps even woundedly, “what does she have to be happy about? She’s one of the people who got us into this mess.”

Moreover, unlike “hope” and “change,” “joy” is an emotion which inherently favors the status quo. No one who’s happy wants to change anything and harsh their vibe. So, if Kamala’s theme is “joy,” then doesn’t that mean she just wants to keep doing more of the same? Actually, that’s not even a question. We know she wants to keep doing more of the same, not just in terms of policy (where her woke bona fides are obvious), but also in terms of the campaign trail. That is to say, what the theme of “joy” is really about, when you cut through the code, is the fact that Kamala’s team wants nothing to change between now and November. She wants to go on smiling her way through speeches in front of friendly audiences, with as few debates, as few interviews, and as few unscripted moments as she can possibly get away with. And like the overgrown Spring Fling Queen she is, she thinks just snapping “Ugh, why are you so sad” at anyone who dares to ask questions or point out her record is enough to get through the election, when everyone will (presumably) just pull the lever for her in order to keep the vibes going, regardless of whether it will actually improve their own circumstances.

Will it work? If we were talking about an election in peacetime, with a roaring economy and a contented populace, then yeah, it probably would. But that’s not the world we live in. No one, including Kamala Harris’ own voters, has much of anything to be happy about outside of the minor dopamine hit Kamala’s campaign is providing them on social media, which will fade before long. In fact, not only will it fade, but to most Americans who aren’t afflicted with Kamala’s brand of yassified brain rot, it’ll seem shockingly unempathetic. To borrow from Robert De Niro in Joker, the average voter will eventually think, “I’m struggling to feed my family and you’re laughing?”

Well, yes, they are. Because the thing is, the Democrats have nothing else. They can’t offer a plan for how to make people happy; that would require them to be honest about their goals – goals no American actually wants to vote for. They just have to keep grinning like the Joker himself and praying no one notices how hard they’re clenching their teeth or how hard their muscles are straining to maintain the rictus. Fortunately, the GOP is not so afflicted. Which is why the candidate of “joy” is going to learn the same lesson as Joy herself in “Inside Out”: yes, people do come to help because of sadness. And one person in particular is going to help.

His name is Donald J. Trump.