Did you detect a theme at the DNC?
An underappreciated story from the DNC convention last week was how Democrats finally seemed to get their messaging act together.
Speeches at the DNC convention that ended Thursday night dwelled less on Donald Trump and his many crimes and miserable plans for this country. Democrats focused more on where they want to take America and everyone in it. As Vice President Kamala Harris said in her acceptance speech Thursday night, “we have so much more in common than what separates us.”
Freedom was the central theme of the convention. Freedom is a core American value. For conventioneers and viewers slow on the uptake, Beyoncé’s “Freedom” regularly blasted the United Center as a bumper between program segments.
Throughout the four-day convention, speakers invoked freedom not as an abstraction or as justification for stockpiling weapons. Democrats embraced freedom as the expression of personal and family autonomy, freedom as the catalyst for realizing people’s hopes and dreams for a better future.
It was a sharp pivot from President Joe Biden’s emphasis on saving the nation from “clear and present threats to our very democracy.” But people facing more immediate concerns of paying monthly bills and feeding their families have less bandwidth for saving democracy than members of the political class. Harris chose to energize her base with an uplifting message of where their dreams might take them rather than doomsaying about a second Trump term and the end of the United States as we know it. This was no accident.
Freedom has broader applications. The Washington Post on Tuesday noted the rhetorical shift:
Freedom, as Democrats have increasingly used it, can mean saving democracy from would-be autocrats. But it can also refer to protecting reproductive rights, same-sex marriage, access to affordable health care, a choice of what to read at school and safety from gun violence.
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For decades, Republicans have adopted freedom as their rallying cry, amplified in recent years by the 2010 tea party movement’s “Don’t Tread on Me” slogan and the 2015 creation of the “Freedom Caucus” by a group of far-right GOP members of Congress.
Anat Shenker-Osorio, a liberal communications consultant, has been urging Democrats to reclaim the term “freedom” for several years. In focus groups she’s conducted with disaffected Democrats and swing voters, Shenker-Osorio said people respond more favorably on issues such as voter suppression or gerrymandering when they are “framed through the language of freedom than through the lens of democracy.”
“Where freedom sort of lives inside of the body, democracy is a more abstract idea,” she said.
A panel of progressive messaging experts participated in a panel, “Amplify: Getting Louder to Win in 2024,” at Netroots-Baltimore in mid-July. The messaging framework Way To Win, ASO Communications (ASO), Gutsy Media, We Make the Future Action (WMTF), and Amplify promoted was built around Our Freedoms | Our Families | Our Futures. When I asked Shenker-Osorio whether she had plans to be in Chicago for the DNC, she said no. A week later, Biden passed the torch to Harris and those plans changed. The messaging team held a reception nearby Chicago’s United Center on Thursday afternoon.
Within days of Biden’s endorsement of Harris, Beyoncé gave permission to her campaign to use “Freedom” as a campaign anthem. Harris released her first campaign ad featuring the tune days later.
Freedom’s appearance could not have been something the nascent Harris campaign just picked up on the wind.
Shenker-Osorio explained in an email Friday that Harris asked a close friend to send her ASO and WMTF messaging guides months ago. A member of the Harris communications team has been “plugged into” the progressive messaging briefings for some time.
It has taken years for progressive messaging experts to penetrate the Beltway Boys’ Club. Perhaps it took a woman presidential candidate to appreciate their value. If so, it came not a moment too soon.
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