The Joy of Freedom

This tweeter has nothing to do with the remarks of Michelle Obama to which he links. And that's not surprising.

Kamala Harris was so disliked and unpopular - she withdrew from the 2020 Dem Primary.

Without winning a single delegate.

And now - she's been installed as the nominee in 2024? Of the "Democratic" Party? Despite not receiving one single vote?

Is this what they call democracy? https://t.co/T1vM1WpEYA

— Empire Of Lies (@berningman16) August 21, 2024

Mrs. Obama's comments were vague, meaningless, and inspiring. It's hard to counter them.  It's much easier to slam Democrats for nominating for President someone who has never gotten a vote for President.

Yet, it would be much easier if the Democratic Party were to continue President Joe Biden's emphasis on the threat, verifiable and verified, which Donald Trump poses to our democratic republic, or representative democracy. Alas, the Party has decided virtually to ditch its rhetorical interest (maybe more than rhetorically) in democracy (and oh, by the way, justice).. The Washington Post explains that Kamala

Harris on Monday took the stage for a surprise appearance to the rousing beat of Beyoncé’s “Freedom,” her campaign’s unofficial anthem. She was preceded onstage by a nearly three-minute hype video set to the same song, with the narrator promising “freedom from control, freedom from extremism and fear.” Together, the night’s speakers referenced “freedom” more than 100 times. And on Wednesday, the convention’s entire program will be dedicated to the theme “A Fight for Our Freedoms.”

Among the changes in direction since the handoff from Biden to Harris

 the rhetorical evolution is among the most significant, redefining the stakes of the race and giving Democrats a new rallying cry that political practitioners say is far more likely to resonate with voters — including, perhaps, disaffected Republicans and right-leaning independents.

At 100 campaign events since launching his reelection in April 2023, Biden referenced “democracy” 386 times and “freedom” about 175 times, according to a Washington Post analysis of his speeches. By comparison, in nine campaign rallies since he dropped out, Harris referenced “freedom” nearly 60 times and “democracy” around a dozen.

At Harris’s Milwaukee rally on Tuesday night, a part of which was beamed into the Chicago convention, signs reading “FREEDOM” blanketed the arena. “Do we believe in freedom?” she yelled, with the crowd of thousands screaming back an emphatic “Yes!”

There is an obvious short-term advantage to the rhetorical shift because

Where Biden ominously warned that Trump posed a fundamental danger to the future of America’s constitutional republic, Harris has leaned into a term that better fits the more upbeat and optimistic tone she has sought to strike. It can also be applied to a range of issues with a more tangible impact on people’s day-to-day lives, including abortion, education, gun control and the economy.

Long-term, the Party will pay for this, even if the cost- spread through several election cycles- is never acknowledged.  "Freedom" applies to abortion rights, as reflected in the "pro-choice" slogan but application to education, gun control, and the economy is far more tenuous.

The argument that liberal or progressive economic policies impinge on liberty, the freedom of business owners to operate to maximize product whatever the impact upon consumers, workers, and others, has long been a staple of GOP rhetoric and policy. When Democrats recognized that Republicans were making headway with their appeal to the Second Amendment and condemnation of "confiscation," they increasingly substituted advocacy for "gun control" to "gun safety." And the conservative push to replace traditional public education with a more private, profit-driven system typically is framed as proving "choice" for parents.

How soon we forget that President

Biden believed the call to defend democracy would motivate voters to choose him over Trump, as they did in 2020. The message was also integral to Democrats’ successful 2022 midterm election, when they fended off Republican candidates in key state races who repeated Trump’s falsehoods denying the results of the 2020 race.

However, not every voter understands the tenuousness of our representative democracy, nor that the "freedom" craved depends upon perpetuation and stability of our that system of government. And so

Celinda Lake, a longtime Democratic pollster who did polling for Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, said that “democracy” polled well with older Democrats but not with younger ones “who really don’t think we have a democracy.”

“The freedom message is just broader, more forward-looking,” she saidAnat Shenker-Osorio, a liberal communications consultant, has been urging Democrats to reclaim the term “freedom” for several years. In focus groups she’s conducted with disaffected Democrats and swing voters, Shenker-Osorio said people respond more favorably on issues such as voter suppression or gerrymandering when they are “framed through the language of freedom than through the lens of democracy.”

Or maybe there is a simpler explanation for promoting a Democratic spin on a Republican theme: It could be Kamala Harris, herself always a fan of fweedom.

Keith Ellison, the attorney general of Minnesota and a former Democratic congressman, said the rhetorical pivot is part of a broader shift in mood for the party that coincides with the change in presidential candidates. “The messaging is a little more electric,” he said. “People do operate on fear, but they volunteer out of joy.”

For joy! Ellison's comment is accurate and insightful, and maybe a joyful national convention will help voters forget about a grossly inadequate health care system; a broken immigration system no one is happy with; an ongoing plague of fetanyl use, two regional wars, either of which raise the specter of the use of tactical nuclear weapons; acceleration of the nuclear weapons program in Iran and its malignant, growing influence in the Mideast; solvency of the Social Security system; the burgeoning defense budget.

"Freedom" nonetheless probably will work for the Harris-Walz duo, either catapulting it to victory or to a defeat less lopsided than would be expected otherwise. And if it promotes a loss of identity for the Democratic Party, at least it's better than relentlessly calling Donald Trump and J.D. Vance "weird."

Share |