In a chaotic election campaign, Democrats support freedom, foreign policy, the flag and football, by Keith Raffel

It is no surprise that a party bases its claim to the White House on freedom, foreign policy, family and football. The surprise in the chaotic 2024 election campaign is that it is the Democrats, not the Republicans, who represent these four pillars.

1. Freedom

With their “Contract with America,” Republicans won the majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate for the first time in over four decades in the 1994 elections. Grover Norquist, a key initiator of this strategy, boasted: “The imperial city of Washington will fall victim to the forces of liberty.”

While Norquist devoted himself to building the Leave Us Alone coalition in the 1990s, Republicans now seem determined to push the federal government into doctors' examination rooms, marital bedrooms and school libraries. Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz declares, “We respect our neighbors and their personal choices. And even if we wouldn't make those choices for ourselves, we have one golden rule: Mind your own damn business.”

Freedom has definitely become the watchword of this year's Democratic campaign. In her speech at the Democratic National Convention, Vice President Kamala Harris accused her opponent, former President Donald Trump, of taking away American women's “reproductive freedom.” She went on to highlight her support for the freedom to “live safe from gun violence,” “free to love who you love,” “breathe clean air and drink clean water,” and “vote.”

2. Foreign Affairs

Republican presidents have a tradition of supporting NATO and opposing Russian aggression. Two years before running for the White House, Dwight Eisenhower took an indefinite sabbatical from his post as president of Columbia University to become NATO's Supreme Commander. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate separating West and East Berlin and called on Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down that wall.” Trump, on the other hand, threatened to withdraw from NATO as president. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, current Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance said, “I have to be honest with you, I don't really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.” Eisenhower and Reagan must be turning in their graves.

In the 2024 election campaign, Democrats support an active and forceful foreign policy based on opposition to Russia and China. Referring to the Russian attack on Ukraine, Harris stated: “I helped mobilize a global response – over 50 countries – to defend us against Putin's aggression. And as president, I will stand firmly with Ukraine and our NATO allies.” She also promised to ensure “that America, not China, wins the competition of the 21st century and that we strengthen, not abandon, our global leadership.”

3. Flag

Every Republican president since World War II has served in the military, except Trump. In a 1993 interview, Trump said avoiding sexually transmitted diseases in the 1980s was “the equivalent of a soldier going to Vietnam” and referred to women's vaginas as “potential landmines.” In 2018, then-President Trump skipped a visit to an American military cemetery in France, reportedly saying, “Why would I go to that cemetery? It's full of losers.”

Now the Democrats have nominated a man for vice president who spent 24 years in the Army National Guard and who, unlike all those Republican presidents, was a soldier, not an officer. During the campaign, Walz declared, “I am proud to have served my country and I always will be.” Delegates at the Democratic National Convention waved flags and chanted “USA.” This summer, Harris condemned the burning of flags during anti-Israel protests as “despicable,” writing, “This flag is a symbol of our highest ideals as a nation and represents the promise of America.”

Flying the flag could prove to be good politics. A YouGov poll in June found that 30 percent of independent voters consider the Republican Party “patriotic,” while only 13 percent thought so of Democrats. There are votes up for grabs here. Former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger was invited to speak at the Democratic National Convention, where he said, “I've learned something about the Democratic Party, and I want to let my Republican colleagues in on the secret: Democrats are just as patriotic as we are.”

4. Football

Republican President Eisenhower played college football for the Army and Gerald Ford for Michigan. Reagan was known as “Gipper” for his on-screen portrayal of Notre Dame football star George Gipp. Trump called on football legend Herschel Walker to run for a Senate seat in Georgia in 2022.

Now it is Democratic vice presidential candidate Walz who is most closely identified with America's favorite sport. The party is playing up his role as defensive coordinator at Mankato West High School in Minnesota, which won the 1999 state football championship. “I like to call him Coach Walz,” Harris says. The campaign website offers a Coach's Collection that includes a patch in the shape of a football with the words “Team Harris Walz.” At the convention, Walz looked back on past successes: “It's the fourth quarter. We're down a field goal, but we're on offense and we have the ball. We're charging down the field and boy, do we have the right team.”

The Trump team lost the ball as part of a tried and tested strategy. Harris' team picked it up and raced toward the goal line with the ball safely in hand.

A Renaissance man, Keith Raffel has served as senior counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee, founded a successful Internet software company, and written five novels, which you can read at keithraffel.com. He is currently spending the academic year as a resident scholar at Harvard. To learn more about Keith and to read articles by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at creators.com.

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