For the past month, much of American political life has resembled a game of Ouija. Democrats and those who vote for them are amusing themselves with the fantasy that they’ve been visited by some long-dormant spirit, even if the force they are imagining is just the movement of their own hands. The message sent from the great beyond spells Y-E-S-W-E-C-A-N.
Collectively, we are conjuring the ghost of the Obama era — that earnest, optimistic, energized, celeb-obsessed, self-conscious, cringeworthy time. It was an age that seemed dead and buried as recently as mid-July, when Katy Perry’s “Woman’s World” sought to revive the sound of the mid-2010s then promptly flopped. Two days later, Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt and appeared, for the moment, an indestructible electoral force, barely challenged by the sclerotic octogenarian in the White House. The nation seemed to be sleepwalking toward autocracy until the sudden ascent of presidential hopeful Kamala Harris changed everything. She has, as running mate Tim Walz crowed, brought back “the joy.” Within hours of Harris taking over the Democratic ticket, Fire Island twunks posed in matching Kamala crop tops. CNN panelists debated the question of whether Kamala was brat. Barbie-themed “Madame President” signs sprouted on lawns. Megan Thee Stallion twerked at a rally. Cynthia Nixon sipped from a coconut. A campaign has been constructed around a mood, rather than the other way around.
The mood is Obamacore — the outburst of brightness and positivity that took over pop culture upon the election of our first Black president in 2008, and that continued until the wheels fell off eight years later. This was the age of Glee, Taylor Swift’s 1989, and Hamilton, seemingly disparate art born out of the same impulse: the feeling of a new dawn, a generational shift, a national redemption. “There was an excitement to trust new things, the belief that new things were potentially good,” says Liz Meriwether, creator of the “adorkable” Fox sitcom New Girl that ran across both of Obama’s terms. In a departure from the sleaze and snark of George Bush’s aughts, Obamacore positioned itself as sensitive, non-threatening, and relatable. It was Aziz Ansari writing a book on modern dating alongside a Berkeley-trained sociologist, porn star James Deen talking about bacon, Louis C.K. playing a cop on Parks and Recreation.