Democrats reclaim freedom with Oprah, Clinton, and younger pool of leaders

Chicago: On Wednesday night, Democrats sought to reclaim the idea of being the party of freedom and projected their nominee for president, Kamala Harris, as the person who will protect this freedom while Donald Trump would take it away.

And to do that, they deployed their old guard, former President Bill Clinton and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi; American cultural icons, Oprah Winfrey and Stevie Wonder; a pool of younger leaders in the party, governors Josh Shapiro, Wes Moore and secretary of transportation Pete Buttigieg; and a range of leaders from affiliate organisations working on human rights, reproductive rights, and rights of sexual minorities. And, if the response of the 20,000 plus participants in Chicago’s United Center Arena at the party’s convention was an indication, the message resonated.

With the evening centered on the theme of “A fight for our freedoms”, Democrats, who have long been projected as the party of big government even as Republicans have portrayed themselves as the party of liberty; sought to turn the tables. This is a messaging shift that has sharpened after Harris became the party’s candidate last month.

Oprah makes surprise appearance

Oprah, who identifies as a political independent, made a surprise appearance at the convention after a video where everyday Americans described what the idea of freedom meant to them. The crowd erupted in applause and gave her a sustained standing ovation.

She placed abortion at the forefront, referring to the testimonies of those who had suffered due to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the national protection to abortion. Pointing to her body, she said, “If you do not have autonomy over this, if you cannot control when and how you choose to bring your children into this world and how they are raised and supported, there is no American dream. The women and men who are battling to keep us from going back to a time of desperation and shame and stone-cold fear, they are the new freedom fighters. And make no mistake: They are the best of America.”

Oprah paid tribute to those Black girls who were at the forefront of fighting school segregation in the 1950s, and linked it to Kamala Harris’s story. “At school and at home, somebody did a beautiful job of showing this young girl how to challenge the people at the top and empower the people at the bottom…They instilled in her a passion for justice and freedom and the glorious fighting spirit necessary to pursue that passion…And soon..we are going to be teaching our daughters and sons about how this child of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, two idealistic, energetic immigrants..how this child grew up to become the 47th President of the United States.”

Buttigieg, who is gay, mocked Trump and JD Vance, but also linked the idea of freedom with his own story of having a family; he and his husband have two toddlers. “This kind of life went from impossible, to possible; from possible to real; from real to almost ordinary, in less than half a lifetime. But that didn’t just happen. It was brought about. Through idealism and courage. Through organising and persuasion. And storytelling and, yes, through politics. The right kind of politics.”

The party of real freedom

Shapiro, who was in the running to be Harris’s vice-presidential pick, projected Democrats as the party of “real freedom” and attacked Trump for wanting to take away rights and freedom. “It’s not freedom to tell our children what books they are allowed to read. It’s not freedom to tell women what they can do with their bodies. It sure as hell isn’t freedom to say you can go vote but he gets to pick the winner”. Instead, Shapiro said, real freedom was having great public schools, investing in the police and community, when someone can join a union, marry who she wants, start a family on her terms. “Real freedom is when she can look at Madam President and know that this is a nation where everything and anything is possible.”

Maryland governor Moore, an Afghanistan veteran and the first Black governor of his state, built on the theme of freedom, but laced it with the idea of patriotism, another issue that Democrats have sought to reclaim from Republicans.

Clinton targets Donald Trump

Clinton, the 78-year old former president who said he had begun attending conventions since 1972 and left office 23 years ago, turned the tables on Donald Trump by saying he was still younger than the Republican nominee. He called Harris the “president of joy” who would look out for all Americans, while Trump was obsessed with “me, myself, I”. But given the mood of jubilation in Democratic ranks, perhaps in a reminder of what had happened to his wife’s campaign in 2016, Clinton also warned his party from not being complacent and underestimating the adversary. And Pelosi, the grand old lady of the Democratic Party who played a critical role in getting Joe Biden to drop out of the race, reminded the Democratic delegates about the mob attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and how it was Democrats who had saved democracy that day.

By putting freedom, patriotism and democracy on the ballot, Democrats hope they can secure their base but also win over the swing vote. Whether the message resonates outside the hall of the party faithful will be known on November 5.

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