“Freedom” Is America’s Latest Political Football

As proof of their commitment to liberty, the Republicans withdrew gun rightswhile Democrats point abortion rights, But their battles over how history should be taught, what words people should use and what behaviors and investments the government should demand from industry reveal a growing concern about how Americans use their freedoms. And there’s a new, shared willingness to inject the state into those choices.

There is no more loud or confusing contender for the title of freedom than Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida and champion of liberty. potential presidential candidate, He calls his new budget a “Framework for Freedom”. It followed the “Freedom First” budget. In case anyone missed the point, his upcoming book is “The Courage to Be Free”.

But even conservatives sympathetic to Mr. DeSantis have trouble connecting his branding with an agenda that includes increasing state control of local schools and substituting decisions for corporations on how to serve their customers. He signed a law tightening restrictions on the materials teachers can use, preventing cruise-ship companies from requiring passengers to be vaccinated and demanding new government controls on Disney because he disapproved of his practice of speech. Had given. Whatever policies you make, they pinch as a framework of freedom.

California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom calls his home “a true liberty state” because of his commitment to abortion rights and the freedom of children to receive “gender-affirming” medical treatment. But California’s harsher regulatory environment makes it an odd match for the title.

In mixed messages from both sides, Michael Sandel, a political philosopher at Harvard University, hears nothing new in American politics, but a return to something old. “They are both pointing to a larger civic purpose, but the terms of public discourse are poor, and for the time being, and so the language they reach simply does not capture the civic aspirations they seek.” They’re trying to clarify,” he says. “Another way of describing what they are reaching for, in their different ways, is the politics of the common good.”

Back in 1996, Mr. Sandel projected Donald Trump in the book “Democracy Discontent”. Writing that Americans feared they were losing control of their lives and that their communities were disintegrating, he warned of a response “from those who would perpetuate ambiguities, blur boundaries, create conflict between insiders and outsiders.” Tighten the gap between, and promise the politics of ‘taking back our culture and taking back our country’.” (They recently put out a new version of what came next.)

Mr. Sandel explores the vulnerability of American democracy in the wake of the New Deal, which he calls a “procedural republic.” ‘ Freedom to pursue one’s own ends and an economy that highlights consumption. The government would provide economic growth and Americans would debate how best to deliver it, but politicians would shy away from questions about individuals’ values ​​or notions of the good life. This change in one sign led to the Supreme Court in 1943 prohibiting local governments from forcing school children to salute the flag.

This idea of ​​government’s relationship with liberty has become such a core belief of American politics that it seems it has always been there. In the last 70 years, concerns about the morality of Americans became the dry province of religious fanatics, while socialists and militias in search of black helicopters worried most about globalization.

Yet from the Founders through Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, leaders had a premonition of how to produce virtuous citizens capable of self-governance. He saw it as the essence of freedom. Even Alexander Hamilton, the pioneer of evolution, thought that the economy should serve political purposes, not the other way around.

free to be me and me

These ideas have resurfaced ever since Mr. Trump took hold of America’s political structure. Whether they realize it or not, it’s an old tradition that leaders from Mr. DeSantis to Joe Biden often refer to when talking about freedom. in my condition state union addressMr. Biden emphasized not only creating good jobs, respecting the “dignity of work,” but ensuring that young people don’t have to leave their communities to find them — in the founders’ view, the foundation of self-governance. Mr. DeSantis also takes a supportive view of development. He supported free enterprise, he has said, but only “as a means to an end”.

fight over how to teach american history Below, there’s a battle on how to set up Virtue. So it’s a battle over which words Americans should use. In delivering a Republican response to Mr Biden’s State of the Union, the governor of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, presented herself as a defender of free speech while boasting she banned “the derogatory term Latinx in our government” Was. It is an invisible contradiction. The definition of free speech that he seems to have had in mind nevertheless points to an out-of-date idea about the basis of liberty.

Like Ms. Huckabee Sanders, politicians of both parties are spouting words about freedom that no longer mean anything, while they are pointing to new definitions that are not yet coherent. Left and right, an old idea of ​​American liberty is struggling to be reborn.

Correction (24 February 2023): The original version of this article made a minor error in citing Michael Sandel. apologize

Read more from Lexington, our columnist on American politics:

History may yet judge Joe Biden’s presidency as transformative (February 8)

Republicans Are Right That The Federal Budget Is A Joke (February 2)

what did edward hopper see (26 January)

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