To say that there has been a “vibe shift” among Democrats would be an understatement. Since taking Joe Biden’s mantle as the party’s presumptive nominee, Kamala Harris has ushered in a kind wave of positivity that hasn’t been felt within the party for decades. Many commenters have argued that the joy and optimism around Harris have proven potent antidotes to the fear and anger being sold by Donald Trump. One among them: MSNBC analyst Anand Giridharadas, who has been writing extensively about the political power of emotions in his popular newsletter, “The.Ink.” On the latest episode of Inside the Hive, Giridharadas discusses why everyone is picking up such “good vibes” from Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, both of whom helped pull Democrats out of their anti-Trump doom loop. “You have to compete with authoritarianism by doing some of the things it does: by commanding attention, by catering to feeling, by making people feel like they can see a future,” Giridharadas says. “The Harris campaign has somehow tapped into that.”

Of course, it took a long time for Democrats to come to this realization. Since 2016, party leaders have been positioning themselves as the sober guardians of democracy. That has always been true, at least relative to their Republican counterparts. But it was never the most compelling message, says Giridharadas, especially among the youth electorate. “You have to kind of say, I want to save democracy, but I want to save it to do this other thing. Because it may be, particularly for younger voters, the other thing is actually more salient to them,” he says. “I think democracy needs to make a case for itself. I don’t think democracy’s a self-evident truth, with all respect to Thomas Jefferson. I think you need to show people and tell people, We’re gonna save democracy so that you can have this kind of health care, so that you can choose this, so you can choose that.”

Later in the episode, Giridharadas discusses what to expect from next week’s Democratic National Convention and how the enthusiasm bubbling up around Harris is different from that of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. “If I think back to that moment…it was less of a present tense emotion; it was this emotion about what could be,” he says. “I think the joy thing is different because it’s literally about right now in this moment.”

“We’re not just against fascism. Like, fascism’s a fucking bore. It is boring to have your books banned, to have your sexual freedoms taken away. It is a nightmare, and the opposite of all of that is joy,” he adds. “We can’t just fight the kind of depravities of American fascism with something that just makes people feel sad all the time, makes people feel scared all the time. We have to show what it would feel like to be alive.”