The most amazing Democratic National Convention in my memory wrapped up earlier this week in Chicago. I will have a much longer post on Monday, but I want to take today to focus on freedom. And, in the joyful spirit of the convention, have a bit of fun.

This DNC “powerfully illustrated that the rest of us are finally reclaiming the country and its symbols” from right-wing extremists. Nothing shows that more directly than the work to define freedom in terms that change the dynamic from “me, me, me” to “we the people.”

Historian Kevin Kruse wrote of a framing developed by sociologist James Davison Hunter to describe the “culture wars” that emerged in the late 1980s.

“Where cultural conservatives tend to define freedom economically (as individual economic initiative) and justice socially (as righteous living), cultural progressives tend to define freedom socially (as individual rights) and justice economically (as equity).”

After the War on Terror the Democrats, Kruse suggests, stopped talking about freedom and focused instead on defining the party and its leaders: Kerry (the new-and-improved Strong Democrat), Obama (the Inspiring Democrat), and Clinton and Biden (the Responsible Democrats).

“The decision to focus on ‘freedom’ is altogether different. It puts the focus not on the leader at some distance, but on the individual lives and immediate experiences of the voter. The focus isn’t on them; it’s on us.“

And this, Kruse asserts and I believe, is a much more forceful claim to “freedom” than Democrats have made in decades, pushing beyond even the old framing from the 1980s and harkening back to FDR.

“For all the conservative claims that they own that term in that sphere—an insistence that economic ‘freedom’ means tax cuts, deregulation, and a blank check to big business—Walz has furthered a case Democrats are making increasingly in recent days, that true economic ‘freedom’ is offered by things like union rights, fair wages, and yes, government protections that shield individual Americans from the whims of billionaires and big business.

In many ways, it signals a return to the framing that FDR famously advanced during the Second World War, when he articulated ‘The Four Freedoms’ that Americans were fighting to defend. Half of his formulation was framed in a way liberals and leftists of recent decades would understand them, as individual rights of the ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘freedom of worship.’ But the other half showed a more expansive understanding, as FDR also spoke of ‘freedom from want’ and ‘freedom from fear.’”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gave a masterful speech on the first night of the DNC, powerfully suggesting that you cannot love this country if you only fight for the wealthy and big business. “We will choose a new path and open the door on a new day, one that is for the people and by the people.”

Later she visited with Stephen Colbert on his Late Show specials from Chicago. I loved this interview in part because AOC and Colbert talk about waiting tables and bartending, something they’ve both done. “Everyone should work a service job” sometime in their life, they assert, to which I—the former waiter—can only add Amen.

Of course, Colbert had lots of fun during the week in Chicago, especially in his “interview” with “former First Lady Melania Trump” who he discovered was at the DNC. (This is comedy, remember.)

Broadway superstar Laura Benanti should win another award for playing this role! Her physical mannerisms are spot-on and her timing is impeccable as when Colbert reminds her that the JD Vance couch story isn’t true. “Oh, Stephen, I’m a Trump. We really don’t do ‘true.'”

Beloved musicians Mavis Staples and Jeff Tweedy closed out the Late Show week at Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre “with this spine-tingling performance of Freedom Highway by The Staples Singers.”

There is just one thing
I can’t understand my friend
Why some folk think freedom
Was not designed for all men

March for freedom’s highway
March each and every day
March for freedom’s highway
March each and every day
Made up my mind and I won’t turn around
Made up my mind and I won’t turn around

We’re not going back. When we fight, we win.

More to come . . .

DJB

Photo of the iconic Chicago Theatre sign by Neal Kharawala on Unsplash