Democrats demand “Freedom,” “Patriot,” “USA USA USA” and what it means to be “American”

By Karen Rubin, News-Photos-Features.com[email protected]

Freedom.

Democrats reclaimed the word — along with “patriot,” the flag, the “USA USA USA” slogan, and who and what it means to be “American” — at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. It was like a mirror image, reflecting how Republicans have hypocritically used all of those terms to denigrate the nation, our heroes, our history, culture, and heritage, and, most of all, to destroy our core values ​​and ideals that make America, well, great.

The Democrats have finally addressed the issues they have confidently suppressed for so long: abortion rights, climate change, gun violence and, yes, immigration.

Because all of this is an essential part of what “freedom” actually means and what they mean when they say the 2024 election will be “existential.”

“That's an important part of what this election is about. Freedom,” said Minnesota Governor Tim (“Coach”) Walz, the Democrats' vice presidential nominee. “When Republicans use the word 'freedom,' they mean that government should have the freedom to invade doctors' offices. Corporations – the freedom to pollute your air and water. And banks – the freedom to take advantage of their customers.”

“But when we Democrats talk about freedom, we mean the freedom to make a better life for yourself and the people you love. The freedom to make your own health care decisions. And yes, the freedom for children to go to school without fear of being shot in the hallway… I believe in the Second Amendment, but I also believe that our first duty is to keep our children safe.

“That's what this is about. The responsibility we have to our children, to each other and to the future we are building together, where everyone is free to create the life they want to live… no matter who you are, Harris will stand up for your freedom, for your right to live the life you want to live, because that's what we want for ourselves and for our fellow human beings.”

Several Republicans also said at the podium, including former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan: “If you vote for Kamala Harris in 2024, you are not a Democrat, you are a patriot.”

“How can a party claim to be patriotic when it idolizes a man who tried to overturn a free and fair election?” asks former Congressman Adam Kinzinger, who served on the House Committee on Jan. 6 and is therefore well-versed on this issue. “How can a party claim to stand for freedom when it sees a battle for freedom in Ukraine — an attack that pits tyranny against democracy, a challenge to everything our nation claims to be — and it backtracks, it equivocates, it nominates a man who is oddly obsessed with Putin and his running mate who said, 'I don't care what happens in Ukraine'?”

Vice President Kamala Harris accepted her party's nomination and reiterated that she will uphold America's fundamental freedoms. She began by pledging to sign legislation restoring reproductive rights, adding — in a nod to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's “Four Freedoms” — that “many other fundamental freedoms are at stake in this election: the freedom to live safe from gun violence in our schools, communities, and houses of worship; the freedom to love the people you love openly and proudly; the freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis; and the freedom that unlocks all other freedoms, the freedom to choose.” She pledged to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act.

Because of our freedoms, America has been the lodestar for millions of immigrants who built the nation with their bodies, minds, and hearts. “E Pluribus Unum” (out of many, one) was the nation's motto until the Cold War. The immigration system has been completely broken for decades, and Republicans have blocked any solution out of fear that these immigrants will become voting citizens and because the manufactured “border crisis” has been such an effective political slogan for them.

“I refuse to play politics with our security,” Harris said, pledging to sign the bipartisan border security bill rejected by Trump. “I know we can live up to our proud heritage as a nation of immigrants and reform our broken immigration system.” We can create a deserved path to citizenship And secure our border.”

To protect our freedom and defend our democracy, America must continue to lead abroad.

“As president, I will never slacken in defending America's security and ideals, because in the ongoing struggle between democracy and tyranny,” Harris said, “I know where I stand, and I know where the United States belongs.”

The America she sees is “a nation ready to move forward, ready for the next step in the incredible journey that is America.” And so she switched to what has become her rallying cry: “We are not going back.”

Indeed, for the most important speech of her life, she chose a dark blue suit that stood out from the crowd of white suffragists among the delegates who acknowledged her historic nomination as potentially the first woman, first black woman and first South Asian president in US history. But it was also a rejection of Trump's backward-looking presidency and his campaign to put himself back in the Oval Office.

The 2024 election is not just about never returning to Trump's failed, destructive, chaotic and moronic presidency, but also about fighting everything that his promise to “Make America Great Again” implies: a return to a time when women, non-whites and non-heterosexuals were non-citizens undeserving of basic human rights, and when those with money wielded excessive, aristocratic power over society.

While Trump – and his “playbook” for an autocratic regime, Project 2025, devised by his closest advisers – would undo progress toward that mythical “more perfect union” with such hard-won freedoms as voting, marriage and civil rights, Harris would continue her advance. (Poster featured on “Threads”: Dance the Harris Walz: Two steps forward. No steps back.)

In contrast to Trump's vision of “American carnage” (a rehash from 2016), Harris said, “America, let us show each other and the world who we are and what we stand for: freedom, opportunity, compassion, dignity, fairness and endless possibility.”

In an increasingly powerful and insistent voice, she emphasized what it means to be an American: “We are the heirs to the greatest democracy in the history of the world. And on behalf of our children and grandchildren and all those who have made such great sacrifices for our freedom, we must be worthy of this moment.”

“Now it is our turn to do what generations before us have done. Guided by optimism and faith, to fight for this country we love. To fight for the ideals we hold dear. And to bear the enormous responsibility that comes with the greatest privilege in the world. The privilege and pride of being American.”

See also:

Vice President Kamala Harris accepts the Democratic nomination for US President and outlines “a new way forward”, an agenda of opportunities “for the people” and the defense of freedom and democracy

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