On Wednesday night President Joe Biden spoke to the nation about his decision to step down from the 2024 presidential race. He framed it as a necessary step, as a passing of the “torch to a new generation” required in this moment to save democracy. Much has been written about how difficult it must have been for him to make that decision and how rare it is for someone in such an important role to walk away for the greater good.
What is important, though, is how the greater good should be framed by the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris as she attempts to define her candidacy. For no matter how true it is that this next election is in fact a fight for democracy itself, it is also true that such a framing is simply too abstract, to difficult to articulate in the kind of raw political terms required by a national campaign for the nation’s highest office. It’s always harder and less effective to defend an idea than it is to point to what you are going to do to make people’s live better, and what voters are going to get if they choose you.
As Kamala Harris no doubt has some very smart people on her campaign team, it is clear they understood the challenge and have begun to rise to it.
Less than a week after President Biden’s speech, the Harris for President Campaign released their first official video. As narrated by Harris, the first words are “What kind of country do we want to live in?” She goes on to say: “There are some people who think we should be a country of chaos. Of fear, of hate….but us, we choose something different…we choose freedom.”
And then she tells us what that means:
The freedom not just to get by, but to get ahead. The freedom to be safe from gun violence. The freedom to make decisions about your own body. We choose a future where no child lives in poverty. Where we can all afford healthcare. Where no one is above the law.
The tag for the ad, the promise she makes, is this. “We believe in the promise of America and we’re ready to fight for it. Because when we fight, we win.”
Now, one might think it counterintuitive that Democrats would run on a theme extolling the value freedom given that Republicans like to claim they are the party of liberty. But, of course, Republicans are not the party of liberty; they are the party of making sure everyone lives according to their values.
In a speech to the American Federation of Teachers in Houston on Thursday, Harris used the phrase, “We are not going back,” as she cited the draconian measures laid out in the Project 2025 policy book like big tax breaks to corporations, ending the Affordable Care Act, and destroying gains made through collective bargaining in America. She talked about the Republican’s “full-on attack on hard-won, hard-fought freedoms,” like LGBTQ rights, abortion access and gun violence restrictions.
There is a truism in politics that people are far more tolerant of not getting new benefits than they are of having things they have come to expect taken away from them.
There is little doubt that democracy is at stake in this election cycle, but Team Harris has quickly figured out that to defend democracy voters need to be reminded what they will lose if they elect a candidate and a party who are all about taking away so much of what Americans have to come to expect and value. Freedom is on the ballot.
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