How Democrats Became ‘The Party of Freedom’

Depending on your age, you probably remember when Republicans were the masters of the notion of liberty. They fought virtually everything in the name of individual freedom. No matter how good a government program was, the mere fact that it was a government program meant that Americans were less free. And most people agreed with that.

My God, my God – how things have changed! When the United States Supreme Court struck down Roe deerIt has done serious damage to the Republicans’ reputation as the “party of freedom.” But losing the ball, to use a football analogy, is one thing. It’s another when the other team gets it back. That’s what happened at the Democratic National Convention last night. Vice presidential candidate Tim Walz ran 95 yards for a score.

And hit the ball.

When Republicans use the word freedom, they mean that the government should be free to invade your doctor’s office. Corporations should be free to pollute your air and water. And banks should be free to take advantage of their customers.

But when we Democrats talk about freedom, we mean the freedom to create a better life for yourself and the people you love.

The freedom to make your own health care decisions.

And yes, the freedom of your children to go to school without fear of being shot in the hallway.

…

This is what it is about: the responsibility we have to our children, to each other, and to the future we are building together, in which everyone is free to build the kind of life they want.

Republicans have lost control of individual liberty since they took the plunge into a lying, thieving, womanizing sadist. Donald Trump purged the “party of liberty” of its noble principles. His demand for loyalty and suppression of dissent led to mass conformity. Over time, every Republican was trained to say the same thing at the same time for the same reasons, all in service of Dear Leader.

This Borg-type groupthink The Republican Party is generally underestimated, but true conservatives understand that. They still believe in universal democratic freedom, even if Republicans don’t believe in it anymore. And I think Walz had them in mind when he spoke. His message: You didn’t leave the Republican Party. The Republican Party left you. There’s room for you among Democrats.

I do not want to suggest a one-dimensional meaning of freedom. Walz proposed a mixture of negative and positive freedom. Negative: Get the government out of your bedroom and your doctor’s office. Positive: Make the government take more responsibility for public health and safety. Walz is not the leftist Republicans want voters to believe. But his speech represents something new to voters who have just listened to him. It represents a kind of rebalancing of the national consensus.

This rebalancing process has been going on for some time. I would say that the beginning was Barack Obama’s second term and the end, well, I don’t know. What is more certain is that Joe Biden is the bridge. He has bridged the gap between two Democratic parties: one that was “neoliberal” and the other that has restored the class-struggle spirit of Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. Kamala Harris’s presidency would be the continuation of this process, but Walz’s speech is probably the most spectacular representation of it so far. (I say this now, but I might change my mind tonight after watching the vice president’s acceptance speech.)

As I said, most people agreed with the Republicans. That consensus allowed them to resist virtually any government program. But that power had a necessary subtext: the presence in most people’s minds of a government that really did grind people to dust, namely totalitarian Russia. The Cold War ended in 1989, but its vestiges lingered for decades.

It is because of this implication that Republicans have been able to credibly accuse anyone who favors good-government programs of being a communist, socialist, or Marxist. Even though the “Evil Empire” is gone, they continue to do so. They have declared Harris’s plan for “price controls” to be a communist takeover of the food industry. “Price controls” is a lie. She is proposing to ban price gouging, which is not the same thing.

But to be credible, Republicans needed their reputation as the party of individual liberties. They also needed to avoid appearing to be what they accuse others of. The Supreme Court has undermined the first point, but the second has not received enough attention. The Republican Party has become a communist party.

Which is why I think Ana Navarro’s speech earlier this week is a natural complement to Walz’s last night. As a journalist and co-host of ABC’s “The View,” she is his target audience: a true conservative who has been alienated not only by the Republican Party’s abandonment of individual liberties but also by its descent into totalitarian politics.

She said:

Donald Trump and his minions are calling Kamala a communist. I know communism. I fled communism in Nicaragua when I was 8 years old. I don’t take it lightly. And let me tell you what communist dictators do. And it’s never just for one day.

They attack the free press. They label it the enemy of the people, as Ortega does in Nicaragua. They place their unqualified relatives in comfortable government positions, in order to enrich themselves through their position, as the Castros do in Cuba. And they refuse to accept legitimate elections when they lose and call for violence to stay in power, as Maduro is doing right now in Venezuela.

Now tell me something. Do any of these things sound familiar? Is there anyone among the presidential candidates who reminds you of this?