Anne Morriss and Frances Frei

Because vibes are a big deal in leadership

Let’s define “vibes,” which we’ve heard so much about in the reporting on the Harris campaign. Vibes, in short, describe what we feel in the presence of someone else. As the great Maya Angelou observed, more poetically, that feeling is the only thing we really remember about the interaction. 

Vibes are a big deal in leadership. Evolution has taught us to pay careful attention to the emotions of people in power, and their feelings are particularly contagious; a phenomenon the world has witnessed since Kamala became the democratic nominee. Her vitality and strength, her humanity and playfulness—we’ve literally “caught” these feelings from the vice president and watched them spread throughout our communities.

It’s a new emotional frequency, or at least one we haven’t tapped into in a while. For the better part of a decade, leaders on both sides of the aisle have told us the future is a scary place. They’ve invited us to be anxious and afraid, and we’ve been willing to play along. The view from the Right has been particularly dystopian, and Trump’s victim posture and fear of difference have also spread. It’s a story of power that demands the constant vigilance of shadowy forces beyond our control. 

Kamala is inviting us to feel something different. As she campaigns joyfully, vigorously, freely, we get to feel these things again, too. We get to be capable and powerful, responsible for our own shared destiny. We get to come out of our national fetal position and face the future together with rigor and optimism. Damn, for lack of a better word, it feels good. 

We believe that Kamala Harris will be a great president. She’s already spent a lifetime defending the Constitution, and she’s committed to a strong, inclusive, and free America; one where we don’t have to abandon our rights or retreat to our clans in order to prevail. But what has turned her campaign into a movement is that she’s reminded us of what it feels like to be the best version of our American selves: liberated, powerful, collectively ambitious, and not only committed to our own success, but also to the security and prosperity of each other.

When our founders declared independence in 1776, they included the pursuit of happiness on their list of man’s unalienable rights. In that radical letter to princes, they summarized the project of leadership as working to secure a people’s safety and happiness. At Kamala’s insistence, America is refusing to be miserable. For that, she has our vote.

Anne Morriss and Frances Frei are cohosts of the TED podcast Fixable and authors of Move Fast & Fix Things: A Trusted Leader’s Guide to Solving Hard Problems.