In Michigan, Vice President Kamala Harris declared that Americans should be free to make personal decisions without their “government telling them what to do.”
In Arizona, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz warned Republicans: “I don’t need you to tell me what books I should read. I don’t need you to tell me what religion we worship. And I’m sure you don’t need to tell me about my family.”
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And in Philadelphia, when the Democratic presidential ticket made its debut, Walz seemed to be making common cause with the “old white guys” he saw in the crowd, noting, “Some of us are old enough to remember when the Republicans talked about freedom.”
“There is a golden rule,” he added. “Mind your own business!”
Democrats are making aggressive new efforts to challenge Republican claims about the language and symbolism of freedom. Using traditionally right-leaning words and expressions, they portray themselves as true defenders of universal American values and their conservative rivals as proponents of deeply intrusive policies that threaten basic liberties.
For Harris and Walz, these arguments aren’t quick throws—they’re central and consistent parts of their soundscapes, and often one of their biggest applause lines.
Democrats hope that such messages can help their party engage independent voters and occasional moderate Republicans by creating a common ground for ideals that transcend differences in things like tax policy.
“Persuasion doesn’t get people to change their values – it appeals to values that turn out to cut across party lines,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a Democrat who is also campaigning on a message of freedom as a 2020 presidential candidate.
“If you want to reach independents,” he continued in the interview, “if you want to open the door to what I call future ex-Republicans, part of what you can do — without a disingenuous attempt to look different than you are in politics — is touch on those themes.”
A focus on freedom often goes hand in hand with declarations of patriotism. For Harris, a black and South Asian Democrat who could become the nation’s first female president, it’s also a way to affirm and define her own American experience as she contends against a Republican who has exoticized politicians of color and is already questioning. his race.
President Joe Biden has long insisted that “this is not your father’s Republican Party,” the kind of language that amounts to “a permission structure to change your mind,” said Anat Shenker-Osorio, a Democratic communications strategist.
“You don’t have to admit that you’ve gone from belief A to belief B,” he said. “What has happened is this party, this identity, this group that you have joined and belonged to, it has abandoned you. You haven’t abandoned it.”
According to Democrats, the shift in the Republican Party has only become more evident since the 2020 election: former President Donald Trump tried to reverse his defeat. The Supreme Court, led by judges he appointed, removed the constitutional right to abortion, leading to far-reaching abortion bans in many states and harrowing stories of women facing serious health problems. Trump became the first US president to be convicted of a crime and suggested he had no intention of being a dictator — “except for Day 1.”
“The Republican Party embraced the ideals of freedom, democracy and the rule of law,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Walz’s Minnesotan. “The language, the focus and the party of Donald Trump have turned it upside down.”
On no issue have Democrats seen a clearer opening to advance this argument than on abortion rights. Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, the party has repeatedly won elections by pitting abortion access against medical privacy and personal liberty. Its power in the presidential election held two years later has not been tested – but the Democrats are hopeful.
Harris and Walz embrace the message of freedom at every turn and oppose government intrusion into matters of the “heart and home,” as Harris has put it. The Minnesota governor’s “mind your own damn business” line often comes after he says Republicans think “the government should be free to invade the doctor’s office.”
But more broadly, they’re also pushing an upbeat, unashamedly patriotic vision of the country, and Harris presents their partnership — forged from two radically different upbringings in California and Nebraska — as an “only in America” story.
He’s hardly the first Democrat to play these tunes, as the party’s latest nominees might point out. And Republicans — who are skeptical of Democrats’ selective anti-big government language — also emphasize love of country, as usual.
Trump has been known to literally embrace the flag, and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, has highlighted his service in the Marine Corps.
“The Harris-Walz campaign will not displace the American people when it comes to freedom,” said Trump spokesman Steven Cheung, suggesting that under Democrats, far-left ideology had been “imposed on almost every aspect of life.” He added: “The American electorate is fed up with their woke intrusions.”
Other Republicans have mocked the Democratic flag’s message of staying out of other people’s business, as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis slammed Minnesota’s COVID-19 restrictions during Walz’s tenure.
Out of power, Republicans naturally convey a much bleaker view of where the nation is and where it is headed unless they return to the White House.
But Trump has painted an extraordinarily bleak and grievance-filled picture of the country today, none brighter than his 2017 inaugural address, where he described scenes of “American carnage.” It’s a stark contrast to the upbeat ways his Republican predecessors often displayed their patriotism.
Former Representative Reid J. Ribble, who represented Wisconsin as a Republican but does not plan to endorse Trump or Harris, said he was upset by the Democratic ticket’s nod to limited government language. In practice, the policy of the Biden administration has been to use big government to get things done, he said.
In fact, the Democratic Party has traditionally embraced the idea that government has an important role to play in promoting the public good, and in many ways still does — even though Trump and Vance are not traditional free-market conservatives.
But especially on the communications front, Ribble said he’s seen a “role reversal” between the two campaigns.
“It’s always been kind of the traditional Republican mantra to lean on the ‘shining city on the hill,’ the patriotic aspiration, the founders of the United States Constitution, and wearing the flag,” Ribble said. “Now you see Democrats doing this. And interestingly enough, Republicans are attacking the vice presidential nominee on the other side because they didn’t like how he ended his 24 years in the military.
Vance has accused Walz of leaving the Army National Guard to avoid deployment to Iraq and suggested he served in combat when he had not. The Harris campaign has said Walz misspoke in 2018 when he mentioned “those weapons of war that I had in the war” when discussing gun control. Walz this week vigorously defended his broader military record.
Other ugly campaign clashes are underway.
Trump’s questioning of Harris’ racial identity evokes an old political tactic of casting non-white candidates with suspicion from outsiders.
Shenker-Osorio, the Democratic communications strategist, said it was vital to offer counter-definitions of what it means to be American and to call out opponents who seek to divide with dog whistles.
“The way you do that,” he said, “is by creating this much bigger ‘we’ and being over the top and saying, ‘In America, across races, places, religions and backgrounds, we believe in our freedoms.'”
Klobuchar suggested that for Harris, a former prosecutor, and Walz, who represented a largely rural, more conservative district in Congress, talking about defending the rule of law or protecting individual liberties was natural — and that the themes were all too relevant in the current climate. election.
“Words are not just words that have been chosen,” Klobuchar said. “Those are words that really describe where our party is compared to where their party is right now.”
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