Presidential elections are as often about the state of the American people and how we view the future as they are about candidates and their assorted policy prescriptions. The candidates for 2024 are talking a lot about “freedom,” a bedrock American ideal and aspiration.
But what they mean by “freedom” is somewhat odd. In President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign video, freedom is portrayed as “under attack by an extreme movement that seeks to overturn elections, ban books and eliminate a woman’s right to choose. The ad’s narrator tells us that defending freedom has been the “cause of his presidency.”
Okay, fair enough. Then there’s a list of particular freedoms Mr. Biden has championed: “the freedom for women to make their own health care decisions, the freedom for our children to be safe from gun violence, the freedom to vote and have your vote counted…” and so on.
These aren’t classical freedom, as such. They are political issues – abortion, gun control, expanded voting – wrapped in freedom’s clothing and trotted out as bedrock ideas.
It’s a far cry from Franklin Roosevelt’s “four freedoms:
The first is freedom of speech and expression – everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way – everywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from want – which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants – everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear – which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor – anywhere in the world.
But that was a president staring down a global conflict, not one enmeshed in the parochial interest group politics of a reelection campaign.
Let’s give Mr. Biden his due, though: As a campaign theme, being a freedom fighter, of sorts, is an interesting look (even if it’s far less about freedom and much more about positioning for November 2024).
How does it compare to the GOP contenders? Consider this response from potential candidate, Sen. Tim Scott:
“Joe Biden says he wants to talk about freedom. Americans need more freedom,” Scott said in a video message posted last week. “Freedom from his bone-crushing inflation and even higher taxes. Freedom from showing up at school board meetings to talk about your kids and being considered a domestic terrorist. Freedom from a wide-open, insecure, unsafe border. Yes, we want to talk about freedom.”
Again, this is parochial, interest group politics draped in freedom’s outerwear. And it’s not a little bit angry. If Sen. Scott really does want to offer a counterpoint to Biden’s freedom pitch, then Scott and the others running for the GOP nomination should consult that master communicator, Ronald Reagan, oh how to talk about freedom.
Consider this snippet from Reagan 1988 farewell address:
I think we have stopped a lot of what needed stopping. And I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.
That’s the message a Republican candidate for president should be delivering on the stump. It will be hard for some of the candidates, who expound a weird nationalist/populist statism that is anathema to limited government (and by extension, harmful to freedom).
But there’s still time for one of the candidates to step forward and away from the crabbed and bitter statism that infects the GOP to embrace freedom, liberty – and the limited government essential to both.
The only question is whether the will exists to make such a very bold, Reaganesque move.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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