In recent days, to the chagrin of many gun owners, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have been making serious campaign progress. They’ve held rallies with large numbers in attendance, and more significantly, they’re climbing in the polls. Even some prediction markets like Polymarket show Harris with a narrow lead. They’re even running a fairly successful “Republicans For Harris” campaign that’s drawing in real Republicans in swing states.
It may be tempting to call the electoral success they’re experiencing fake, but any reasonable look at the situation has to admit that it took several really smart calls for Democrats to achieve this surge along with a lot of help by the media. Biden dropping out not only took a declining old man out of the race, but also allowed the party to reset its campaign messaging along with fresh faces. Choosing a Midwestern governor who has the appearance of looking down to earth, despite questions of how genuine that is, may prove to be another smart move. Reaching across the aisle to “Never Trump” and other moderate Republicans could also paid dividends.
But, the smartest thing they did by far was to adopt more libertarian messaging. Instead of doing what Democrats have done for decades and telling voters it’s time to take their Euro-socialist medicine, they’re wrapping their platform in the flag. On issues where the Democratic Party is offering people more freedom (abortion is the big one), they’re adopting a slogan of “mind your own damn business.” Whether that proves to be genuine or not, we’ll see.
If you can’t stand her voice, I’ll quote something she said in the video above:
We just want fairness, we want dignity for all people, we want to recognize the right all people have to freedom and liberty to make choices, especially those that are about heart and home, and not have their government telling them what to do!
If you didn’t know anything about the Democratic Party, you might confuse this for something Ronald Reagan would have said. Saying that the government should trust citizens to know what’s best for themselves is basically a 180-degree turn from what Democrats usually stand for.
This rebrand of the Democratic Party works because many people are sick of what they’re seeing the Republican Party do. They were also sick of what they were seeing the Democratic Party do and fortunately or unfortunately, depending on where you stand politically, the public typically has a short memory and tends to believe what they last heard. Overreaching abortion bans, calls for restrictions on the LGBT community (especially the T), and some of the more extreme ideas from Project 2025 have a number of Americans feeling like the Republicans are the anti-freedom party now, while half of America still feels that way about the Democrats. Undercutting Republicans on their own ground, liberty and freedom, is proving to be a successful strategy in the polls for Harris right now.
But, there’s one big fly in the Democratic Party ointment:
Just because you call something “freedom” doesn’t mean it’s actually freedom. To support this rebrand of the party, Democrats aren’t actually changing their policy positions. They’re just using different rhetoric to sell it. Instead of selling gun control as something good on its own, they’re calling it “freedom to live safe from gun violence.”
But, the same old failed policies are being pushed. Universal background checks, which amount to de facto registration which could enable future confiscation is a big one. Red flag laws that deny both the Second and Fifth Amendments are on the list. And, as usual, they’re calling for an “assault weapon” ban.
What they aren’t telling voters about all of this is that if anyone doesn’t wish to comply, they’ll send men with guns to enforce it. They’d gladly send someone else’s father or son to kick down your door and (assuming you don’t give up), shoot you to enforce these laws. I don’t know about you, but in my book this is literally the opposite of “mind your own damn business.”
If Harris and Walz really want to prove that they’re serious about freedom, trusting the public and minding their own damned business, they’d better walk back the gun control talk. Anything short of that, and it’s just another form of tyranny wrapped in the flag.
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