By Dr. Jennifer Mercieca
Every debate starts with definitions.
During the Nixon era, the Republican Party defined itself as the party of “the rule of law.” During the Reagan era, the Republican Party defined itself as the party of “freedom.” During the Bush era, the Republican Party defined itself as the party of “patriotism.” For decades, the Republican Party had successfully branded itself as the party of “the rule of law,” “freedom,” and “patriotism”—against the Democratic Party, which it accused of standing against all of those things. For decades, those were the Republican Party’s self-definitions, until suddenly, they weren’t.
During the Trump era, the Republican Party defines itself as the party of Trump. As the party of Trump, it does not stand for “the rule of law,” nor does it stand for “freedom” or “patriotism.” The Republican Party of Trump stands for Trump, and that’s the way Trump likes it.
The rule of law, freedom, and patriotism are the opposites of Trumpism.
Trump is the only president to be twice impeached for “high crimes and misdemeanors in office.” The only president to be indicted for state and federal crimes. The only president to claim eternal immunity from prosecution in court. The only president who has been adjudicated a rapist and a criminal con man. Trump isn’t “strong” on “the rule of law,” to say the least.
Trump likewise doesn’t have a strong record of protecting Americans’ First Amendment freedoms of speech, press, assembly, or religion. Trump has taken credit for taking away women’s freedom to choose—and if his Project 47 plan goes into place, then Americans can expect to lose even more freedoms, including the freedom to love who you love, the freedom to read and teach ideas that Trump decides are “dangerous,” and the freedom from a federal police state.
Trump loves to claim that since he was born on Flag Day, he’s kind of like America itself, but the accident of his birth can hardly be considered a form of patriotism. Trump doesn’t know American values, opposes the Constitution, and threatens the national alliances that protect us. While Trump was president he embarrassed the nation on the world’s stage repeatedly.
Trump’s complete takeover of the Republican Party means that the Democratic Party has an opportunity to seize the rhetorical ground once occupied by Republicans. Democrats can become the party that defines itself as protecting the rule of law, freedom, and patriotism—and so doing would be a savvy move to help them win elections.
But making this rhetorical shift is about more than winning elections.
As Joe Biden has explained, we’re in a struggle between democracy and autocracy both in this country and around the world. The 2024 election is what LBJ’s National Security Advisor Walt Rostow called a “hinge of history” in 1964. Rostow hoped history would remember the JFK and LBJ Administrations as an “interval of intense crisis surmounted with strength and moderation which opened the way to peaceful victory for the forces of diversity and freedom.” And sixty years later, perhaps, we do.
The 2024 election—like the 1960s—is another of history’s hinges: in 2016 and 2020, Trump ran as a demagogue (an unaccountable leader) who promised to use the power of the presidency to take over the government to effect the MAGA agenda. In 2024, Trump is running as a dictator (a totalitarian leader) who will destroy the government to effect the MAGA agenda. 2024 is another interval of intense crisis, which we hope the nation will surmount with strength and moderation in order to achieve a peaceful victory for the forces of diversity and freedom.
In the hinge of history, words and parties are in flux—what was previously seen as “liberal” might suddenly become “conservative.” A politician who was once “conservative” might suddenly become a “radical” or “anarchist.” It’s a confusing time because once static concepts are shifting rapidly. Within that shifting discursive terrain, the key terms of American stability—rule of law, freedom, and patriotism—take on even more meaning as part of what Lincoln once called “the mystic chords of memory” in our national story.
Yet, while it makes good strategic sense to embrace the Republicans’ old “rule of law,” “freedom,” and “patriotism” discourses, it’s an awkward fit for Democrats. After all, Republicans have cynically positioned Democrats against these key terms for decades.
Perhaps Democrats might find it useful in their fight against autocracy to redefine these terms to suit the cause of democracy (practicing a strategy sometimes called “semantic infiltration”). The “rule of law,” for example, doesn’t have to mean the racist practices of “law and order” policing, as the Republicans might have used it, but instead could have a more capacious definition as “equality before the law” or “accountable to established law”—which is how the ancient Greeks used the term “isonomia,” the essential part of democratic theory.
Not only, therefore, does it make good strategic sense for Democrats to embrace the terms of stability in American political discourse, not only would it help to defend American democracy from autocracy, but embracing these terms now might ultimately help to make America more democratic than it was before Trumpism.
Now is the time for Democrats to reclaim and defend America’s rule of law, American freedom, and American patriotism.
For decades, the default assumption made and propagated on the right has been that America is their country and the rest of us have to comply. The extreme right has been successfully defining what “America” is and which policies are and are not “American” for decades. Why let them? Why cede that very important definitional ground? So doing cedes them the nation effectively.
They've been able to do this so effectively because they've been determined to do it. It's been a central part of their plan to roll back the rights and freedoms won in the last “hinge of history” in the 1960s. But they've also been able to do this because Democrats have let them.
Democrats have often acted as though liberal progress is natural or guaranteed (“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” as Martin Luther King said). But, as we have seen, democratic progress is not at all guaranteed. Democratic progress has to be fought for and defended.
The right wing is most effective when it's unified. And it has offered a pretty specific, unified definition of what America is, which policies are and are not "American," and who is "American" for decades. They’ve also claimed that Democrats are trying to steal “their” nation from them. Those essentialist arguments have enabled the rise of Trumpism in America.
Democrats need to decide that this is their America, too, and they need to define what America means, who or what is American, and which political practices and policies are American.
Here’s a start: a democrat is someone who is motivated by freedom, equality, social justice, and political practices that allow all citizens to share power.
America is a nation for democrats.
America is a nation that includes all and guarantees their rights and freedoms.
America is a place for hopes and dreams.
America is a place for ingenuity and problem-solving.
America is a force for good and justice.
America is always striving to be more American.
Of course, America is an unfinished and imperfect project that has not yet lived up to its own ideals. But that’s OK because Americans get to define what America is, and every new generation of Americans does just that. America is your nation. You are America.
