Ted Lasso is the main character in the Apple TV+ series of the same name. Lasso, an American, is coach of a soccer team in England. I’ll come back to that.
Hello, Chicago !
As the Democratic National Convention, which ended last Thursday, drew comparisons with the one held in 1968 — also in Chicago, and the scene of massive protests. Two months before that convention, Robert F. Kennedy Sr., then the Democratic Party’s great hope and presidential candidate, was shot dead by an assassin.
I just got back from the convention. During the four days of what was a bit like a music festival in which most of the performers had been replaced by elected officials, the Kennedy name was once again at the center of many conversations. Former President John F. Kennedy’s grandson Jack Schlossberg addressed the United Center crowd and more than 20 million television viewers, flanked by former President Jimmy Carter’s grandson.
Jack Schlossberg (whose Christian name is John, which he does not use) is the cousin of Robert Kennedy Jr., who was running as an independent candidate for president and who has just endorsed Donald Trump.
But most importantly, he is the nephew of the late John F. Kennedy Jr. And it is he, the son of the former president who lost his life in the 1999 crash of his plane, that I think of a lot since Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Waltz injected a good dose of vitamin B12 to the present campaign.
JFK Jr. grew up under a magnifying glass and was widely seen as a future president of the United States after his speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention. He instead chose law, and later became editor-in-chief of the magazine Georgewhich he co-founded in 1995. One day, in an interview, he would say: “People often tell me that I could be a great man. I prefer to simply be a good guy.”
A good guy, that’s where I’m coming from.
The Harris-Walz ticket projects decency, and that is why its success is tangible with $540 million raised since Kamala Harris entered the race, barely a month ago. That is a million new donors who have contributed to this important fund. And to add to these many new donors: hundreds of thousands of new voter registrations in view of the vote on November 5.
These donors and voters felt neither engaged nor invested in the campaign before Harris and then Walz came on the scene. People who were seduced by the Democratic electoral platform, yes, but also by the messages of joy and hope of the dynamic tandem.
This election, beyond politics, is a choice between propriety and indecency. Between building and deconstructing. This election is also a slam contest, to see who can best tell the “American Story.” The one of today and the one of tomorrow. It is therefore not surprising that the campaign inspired the artist Shepard Fairey, who created a poster of Kamala Harris featuring the word “Forward,” as he had done with the word “Hope” for the iconic poster of Barack Obama.
IMAGE SHEPARD FAIREY, PROVIDED BY THE DEMOCRAT PARTY
Kamala Harris’ campaign poster, signed by artist Shepard Fairey
Ted Lasso to the Rescue
In August 2020, while most of us were stuck at home in the midst of a pandemic, Apple TV+ released the first season of the series Ted Lasso. With his enthusiasm, his joviality and his messages of hope, the coach Lasso offered us an escape and deliverance from a world that then seemed incomprehensible and frightening.
PHOTO KEVIN LAMARQUE, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Actors Jason Sudeikis (Ted Lasso) and Hannah Waddingham (Rebecca Welton), from the series Ted Lassotook a series of questions from reporters in the Brady Press briefing room at the White House last March.
Earlier this year, author and columnist Frank Bruni, of New York Timespublished the book The Age of Grievance (free translation: The time of grievances).
In his work, Bruni argues that both the right and the left are to blame for this climate of rage in which everyone feels wronged. All this anger and grievances in politics, which can generate anxiety, are heavy and exhausting.
Yet part of the role of our elected officials is to lighten our burden, to make us feel part of a whole, to reassure us and to be optimistic. Lucidity, the sometimes terrible realities of our time and optimism can coexist, they are not mutually exclusive. This is an equation that the authors of Ted Lassojust like Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
In his 1968 eulogy for his brother Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Teddy Kennedy said, “Love is not an easy feeling to express in words. Like loyalty, trust, and joy. But [Robert F. Kennedy] was all of that. He loved life completely and lived it intensely.”
These may not be easy feelings to express, but they are easy to feel. And that confidence, that joy, was palpable at the Democratic convention in Chicago. I came back almost drunk. As a Montrealer, a Quebecer and a Canadian, I envy this sudden collective enthusiasm for politics and civic engagement, which seems to me to be sorely lacking in our country. At least, these days. I hope that this vitamin B12 will make it this far.
A previous version of this text incorrectly attributed the series to Netflix. Ted Lasso. Furthermore, Jack Schlossberg is indeed the nephew, not the cousin, of John F. Kennedy Jr.
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