For Me, the Joy of the Harris/Walz Campaign Is Driven by a Hope for Justice

Bullies can not be defeated by positive thoughts alone, there must also be accountability

Imagine you went to school in a small town. Every day, a bully punched one of the smaller kids in the stomach and took his lunch money. The smaller kid tried to complain about it, but since the bully had “always done this” his appeals fell on deaf ears and nothing was ever done.

Everybody reached an uneasy equilibrium that went on until, due to a strange fluke, the bully was elected class president. Now, given power, he decides to flex his muscles. He starts recruiting other kids who had always been inclined to being bullies but never thought they could get away with it.

Slowly, the bully's victim group starts to expand. More kids are getting hit in the stomach, some of them girls. They're getting their money taken from them. The bully thinks it's funny and keeps giving speeches about what a great job he's doing and how the school has never been better.

Finally, at the next election, a brave girl stands up to the bully. She brings with her a message of joy, and the bully is defeated.

In most fairy tales, that would be the ending. We'd see the bully cringing in defeat, and we'd see the heroine being lifted by the crowd. Perhaps that's the problem with all our storytelling. We need an epilogue to find out what happens next.

You'd never believe it, but it's at this point where a crowd comes forward to make appeals for the bully. “Aw, he's not so bad. He's just misunderstood. He was just doing what he thought he was expected to do. We have to understand things from his point of view.”

All of this sounds reasonable enough. Believe me if you're right there in the moment, you'd get caught up in that dialogue too. But there's one thing you haven't noticed. There's one person you haven't heard from.

Do you know who that person is?

The person who never gets a chance to speak either in fairy tales or in real life is the original kid who kept getting punched in the stomach and having his money stolen from him.

What's his story?

What's his perspective?

Why do we allow ourselves to disregard the level of suffering that goes on all around us?

I think it's because it infringes on our sense of joy. We want to celebrate with the young heroine, and that means we're inclined to disregard the plight of the people who are truly suffering. It brings us down. It makes us unhappy. We'd prefer to focus on the happiness, and make that the objective of our campaign.

But there's a danger of focusing entirely on joy. That danger comes in the fact that the bully and the bully's advocates aren't going to wait around for their chance to defend themselves. They're going to take it. They're going to shoulder in there and start spreading propaganda about how they're the real victims before the loss has even been established.

They're going to seize the stage and make sure the people they exploited never have a chance to make their case. Even when the downtrodden and the oppressed try to talk, people on the side of the heroine will come out and say, “Let's make this about joy!”

But the thing is, when acts of abuse have been committed, joy and joy alone will not be the only factor in play. Life is not a 24/7 party where people are happy, laughing, and dancing all the time. If there is going to be justice, the bullies must be exposed for the monsters they are.

Too often, society gets into a rush to establish a new equilibrium, and good people decide it's most expedient to compromise with the philosophy of the bullies.

“After all, he's always done that. Progress can't be too fast. We have to have unity.”

Well, the bully's worldview is that he must be allowed to punch a kid and steal his lunch money every morning. So, everyone decides that as long as the bully goes back to only beating up on the original kid, then he can continue to live by his traditional ways.

Now, obviously, if you're reading this scenario, you're shaking your head in disgust. “You can't allow the bully to continue to beat up on some innocent kid just because you want unity.”

Yeah, it's obvious when you put it like this. Too bad it's not so obvious when we keep doing it again and again and again in US history. The other thing is, it IS obvious to the kid who is constantly getting beaten and robbed.

When the kid says, “Forget forgiving that jerk, this needs to be stopped.”

He gets silenced with cries of, “Why can't you experience the joy? Why do you have to ruin it for the rest of us?”

The lesson we all have to learn is that when a bully is present, punishment becomes inevitable. Once a bully has made the personal choice to exploit and abuse the people in his vicinity, either they will continue to suffer, or the bully will be held accountable.

If and when a bully is held accountable, he's going to whine and cry and scream. He'll throw such a temper tantrum that decent, caring people will feel inclined to feel sympathy for him. But there's another thing you have to recognize.

The kid the bully attacked never cried and whined and screamed. He silently endured the abuse because he knew his appeals would fall on deaf ears.

I think, too often our society is content to let the bullied continue to be bullied because they think, “Well, they've gotten used to it.” They look at the rich guy who has been pampered all his life, they listen to him cry and whine about how unfair everything is, and they feel compassion, “Well, it's going to be harder for him because he's always had it easy.” So, in the end they determine that the bullied can continue to endure the mistreatment.

That's what happens. It's the most lazy and unfair decision in the world, but unfortunately the downtrodden are rarely handed power so they are always sacrificed in the name of expediency.

“Progress can't be too fast. You just have to toughen up. It's just one punch per day. Maybe if you worked a little harder and brought more money he wouldn't hit you so hard. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.”

When it comes to watching the Harris/Walz campaign, I'm excited by the future. I appreciate the joy that they're bringing to American politics. However, I'm not willing to sacrifice good people for the sake of unifying a divided nation. The only thing I'm willing to sacrifice is the rotten to the core philosophy of bullies.

Either the victims of bullies have to endure pain, or the bullies must be held accountable.

So, I'm not on the side of understanding where the bullies come from and accommodating them. I do feel joy at the prospect of transformative change in our society, but that change does not end with an election, it is only the beginning.

Our greater task is to change our perspective. We can no longer disregard the cries of the innocent because it's easier to just give the bullies what they want. When we've soundly rejected the philosophy of bullies, then I'll celebrate. Until then, I'm going to continue to advocate for the innocent kids who are getting beaten and robbed.

I can feel enthusiasm for a transformative moment, but I won't feel joy until the bullies have been stopped.

But I'm hopeful for the future, because ultimately I believe that Harris/Walz stand for the profound change of justice rather than a fleeting celebration of joy. The joy has to be derived from something tangible and enduring.

During the DNC convention, women were given the opportunity to share their stories of abuse. That wasn’t a moment of joy. That was a women when the bullies were pushed aside and good people who have suffered were FINALLY allowed their chance to speak. That was a moment of justice.

Those are the moments we NEED. We must address the pain of the present to ensure the joy of the future.

Justice will lead to joy, but there are going to be some hard moments along the way. We have to stay the course, and not be too timid to hold the bullies accountable. The bullies aren’t going to be happy, they’re going to make a lot of noise, they’re going to be pitiable, but if we placate them it’s only at the expense of misery for the innocent. We’ve tried that path, it doesn’t work.

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