America needs a good hard cry

We’ve probably moved on from Gus Walz’s emotional response to his dad accepting the vice presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention, but it’s still worth discussing. I wondered what was really behind the hideous response to it. I think it’s more than he’s a male, or he’s neurodivergent. It’s because we haven’t seen real emotion like this in a long time.

Our culture celebrates a stony stoicism we consider mature. We’re expected to accept defeat with graciousness, heartbreak with unflappable grit, and physical pain with an action hero-style quip. When we see emotion at all, it’s either the anger to intimidate or the fake tears to manipulate. We distrust emotion because it is often used as a tool to control others. We rarely see it as the honest outpouring of an open soul.

That’s why Patrick Healy of the New York Times declared, “Joy is not a strategy.” It isn’t. The joy we saw at the DNC and the Olympics was a genuine expression of love for country and our fellow Americans we haven’t seen in a while. It’s what happens when we don’t demonize each other because of our political differences. When we raise each other up instead of looking for reasons to tear each other down. We stop seeing people as commodities to be exploited and see them as our neighbors. We celebrate their victories as our own. Their happiness lifts our spirits. This joy wasn’t…