As I previously wrote, Marco Rubio has announced that the 2010 elections are "a referendum on our very identity as a nation."
Tim Pawlenty calls out to "patriots across this country" to send a message to "liberals" that they are not going to let them "take our freedoms."
The Christian right declares that the "liberal agenda" has whitewashed the true purpose of the nation's founding, and it's time to "reclaim our nation."
Powerful stuff. Visceral, emotional, and, despite the fact that "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel," very effective - particularly in a time of great economic anxiety and diminished public trust of the government.
An anonymous commenter on a previous blog post noted:
Combating this line of attack with facts that do not have the emotional impact of the propaganda we are trying to debunk is a slow process and a reactive one.
The fundamental problem facing Democrats and liberals is this: the conservative movement has completely co-opted the words "freedom" and "liberty", and successfully defined "liberals" as those who are the enemy of freedom and liberty - and of the Constitution itself.
Liberals have had no answer to this. They have been on the defensive for years. Refuting this kind of accusation makes liberals sound defensive, and therefore unpersuasive.
What should liberals do?
My anonymous commenter puts it this way:
Progressives need to speak out for the America we actually want to become. Deliver a message... for American families that stresses the foundational aspects of progressivism: peace, justice, equality, education, health care for all, personal freedom based on Constitutional rights guaranteed by law, economic fairnes and opportunity, a clean environment and effective government.
Basically, liberals need to stop cowering in fear of conservative attacks and develop positive arguments for their policies that they can communicate with the same intensity and fervor as the conservatives.
In order to do this liberals essentially need to re-define what "freedom" means in modern-day America and communicate clearly and forcefully why they are the protectors of these freedoms.
Despite the conservative rhetoric, progressives have history on their side. They need to develop a concise, clear message that communicates that history and ties it to the present.
The fact is, if you examine the history of the last 100 years, progressive ideas and policies are responsible for every modern "freedom" and "right" most Americans now enjoy. Child Labor laws, anti-trust laws, women's suffrage, direct election of senators, social security, unemployment benefits, Medicare, voting rights, civil rights - the list goes on. All of these are progressive causes.
Who can argue that we would be better off as a nation without them?
The fact that these freedoms and rights are not explicitly laid out in the Constitution does not diminish the necessity of fighting for them or the benefits they confer upon our citizens. Most Americans, even those who oppose "big government" take most of these "rights" for granted.
If the conservatives want to argue that government is not the proper tool for achieving these goals, fine, we can debate that till the end of time and never agree. The fact remains that virtually every American has benefited from the progressive ideas of the last hundred years, and modern liberals need to stake their claim to this truth with conviction.
During his presidency, Franklin Roosevelt outlined his Four Freedoms: Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. It's the last two that give conservatives conniptions, because they go beyond what is expressly set forth in the Constitution.
Roosevelt faced stiff opposition to policies based on the Four Freedoms, but he expressed the necessity for these policies with such powerful conviction that he was able to win millions of Americans to his side. He persuaded the public that the times demanded a new and more expansive view of freedom.
In Doris Kearns Goodwin's book, Team of Rivals, she quotes an observer of Abraham Lincoln's first major speech on slavery in 1854:
"His speaking went to the heart because it came from the heart. I have heard celebrated orators who could start thunders of applause without changing any man's opinion. Mr. Lincoln's eloquence was of the higher type, which produced conviction in others because of the conviction of the speaker himself."
It's time for liberals, progressives, Democrats and all who believe in a more just and equal society to step up and start speaking from the heart and acting with the courage of their convictions.
Who could have imagined that, barely a year after Obama took office, the conservatives would once again be winning the propaganda war? But winning it they are.
The situation "on the ground" has not changed, however. The American public, particularly those who are out of work or who have lost their homes or who are incensed that enormously profitable banks are lobbying against financial reform with our money, still haven't experienced the change they voted for in 2008.
In 1857, in the Dred Scott case, the Supreme Court ruled that blacks "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."
In the 1960's, during the civil rights era, Dr. Martin Luther King said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
Today, in 2010, a black man named Barack Hussein Obama is President of the United States.
Progressives and liberals brought the nation from there to here, from then to now - not conservatives. Progressives and liberals are the force that bends the arc of history toward justice.
It's time to stand up and own it.
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