The biggest thing in sight and the first thing most people probably saw when they walked into the arena where Kamala Harris held a recent rally in Greensboroph646, N.C., was the word “FREEDOM” on a giant blue banner with block letters in white and giant stars and flags on either side.
Before 17,000 people so loud at times you couldn’t hear her say she was glad to be in Greensboro, Ms. Harris talked about “the awesome responsibility that comes with the greatest privilege on Earth: the privilege and pride of being an American,” which led right into the crowd chanting “U.S.A.”
This is what Ms. Harris asks crowds to chant at the end of her rally speeches, in good humor, almost like she too can’t believe this year’s turn of events. At each of these phrases, the crowd calls back “yes”: “Do we believe in freedom? Do we believe in opportunity? Do we believe in the promise of America?”
Patriotic Americana has been Ms. Harris’s theme since she became the Democratic presidential nominee, from the flags waving at the convention to calling her running mate, Tim Walz, “coach.” There’s so much enthusiasm out there for Ms. Harris right now, and the place she’s chosen to direct it is in a patriotic swell that contains a harder message combining liberal ideas and a kind of conservatism that’s about preserving the American idea of the recent past.
In political patriotism there is sometimes an impulse to talk about America as the only place in the world that could have produced the candidate standing before you, where the candidate becomes a symbol of something greater. That can endear or repel listeners, depending on their disposition. Who knows whether these appeals ultimately work with voters, but that’s not the way this has really been with Ms. Harris. Virtually nothing about the freedom message has to do with her; it’s more like “freedom” is the collective condition and experience of the country, to be repaired or damaged, and the cheerful patriotic packaging an extension of her own often upbeat personality.
In Greensboro, between her arrival on and exit from the stage (to Beyoncé’s “Freedom”), the “freedom” message could sound darker. The riff ultimately touched on a mix of rights (like voting and L.G.B.T.Q.) and standard-of-living issues (like gun violence and clean air) as well as, centrally, abortion. “Ours is a fight for freedom, like the fundamental freedom of a woman to be able to make decisions about her own body and not have her government tell her what to do,” she said to a particularly explosive crowd response.
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