Across the many speakers on the third night of the Democratic convention — from a former president to the national youth poet laureate, from the former House Democratic leader to the current one, senators, representatives, governors and even Oprah Winfrey — “freedom” was a common theme.
“Let us choose truth,” Winfrey said. “Let us choose honor. And let us choose joy. But more than anything else, let us choose freedom. Why? Because that’s the best of America.”
And freedom came in many forms, whether it was speakers pledging to protect reproductive and LGBTQ rights, railing against book bans, or underlining the right to free and fair elections as they invoked the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
“It's not freedom to tell our children what books they're allowed to read. No, it's not,” said Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a finalist to be Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate. “And it's not freedom to tell women what they can do with their bodies. And hear me on this: It sure as hell isn't freedom to say you can go vote, but [former President Donald Trump] gets to pick the winner.”
Or as Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is openly gay, put it: “I’ve got a message for the Republicans and the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court: You can pry this wedding band from my cold, dead, gay hand.”
Wednesday night even featured Republicans telling other Republicans that they had the freedom to cross party lines to vote their conscience.
“To my fellow Republicans, you are not voting for a Democrat, you are voting for democracy," said former Trump administration official Olivia Troye. "You aren't betraying our party, you are standing up for our country."
“If you vote for Kamala Harris in 2024, you're not a Democrat,” concurred former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who said he faced a slew of attacks for standing up to Trump’s efforts to subvert the state’s election results. “You're a patriot.”
While the climax of the penultimate night of the DNC was Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s vice presidential acceptance speech — and Harris’ running mate’s introduction to the American people — it was the message of “freedom” that stole the spotlight.
"Freedom," Walz said, was what let him start his family when he and his wife struggled with fertility.
"When we Democrats talk about freedom, we mean the freedom to make a better life for yourself and the people that you love," he said.
And National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman said freedom is what unites all Americans: "We are one family regardless of religion, class or color. For what defines a patriot is not just a love of liberty but our love for one another. This is loud in our country’s call because while we all love freedom, it is love that frees us all."
Former President Bill Clinton, the made his case for a Kamala Harris presidency while taking several digs at former President Donald Trump.
“Kamala Harris is the only candidate in this race who has the vision, the experience, the temperament, the will and, yes, the sheer joy to get something done,” Clinton said. “What does her opponent do with his voice? He mostly talks about himself, right? So the next time you hear him, don't count the lies. Count the ‘I’s.’”
Among the jabs he took at Trump, Clinton asked: “Do you want to build a strong economy from the bottom up and the middle out? Or do you want to spend the next four years talking about crowd size?”
Clinton also said he wondered what world leaders watching Trump on the campaign trail are “supposed to make to these endless tributes to the late, great Hannibal Lecter?”
But Clinton also found a way to poke fun at himself. Noting that Harris worked at McDonald’s while in college, the former president said, “I'll be so happy when she actually enters the White House as president because she will break my record as the president who spent the most time at McDonald's.”
In a surprise appearance on Wednesday night, Oprah Winfrey made a vigorous appeal to independent and undecided voters to get behind Vice President Kamala Harris. She spoke of the “best of America” and using “common sense” to decide who to vote for, while taking a couple of implicit jabs at the GOP ticket. This was Winfrey’s first time speaking at a national political convention.
“Since I was eligible to vote, I’ve always voted my values and that is what is needed in this election now more than ever,” Winfrey said. "Decency and respect are on the ballot in 2024.”
Winfrey noted that she herself is registered as an independent voter who is “proud to vote again and again and again,” taking a swipe, without naming him, at former President Donald Trump’s recent comment to Christians that they just need to vote in this one election. (Trump and his campaign sought to clarify that, despite the alarm from Democrats and democracy advocates, he was talking about evangelical Christians not voting en masse.)
The former daytime television host and Chicago native also used her remarks to tell the story of Tessie Prevost Williams, who helped integrate public schools in New Orleans in 1960 and who died last month.
“And soon and very soon, we’re going to be teaching our daughters and sons about how this child of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father – two idealistic, energetic immigrants – immigrants – how this child grew up to become the 47th president of the United States,” Winfrey said of Harris.
“It's the honor of my life to accept your nomination for vice president of the United States,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said at the start of his speech.
Walz shared his story of growing up in a small Nebraska town, joining the Army National Guard and becoming a high school teacher and football coach.
He said his players and students inspired him to run for Congress in 2006, when he won in a historically red district.
“They saw in me what I had hoped to instill in them: a commitment to the common good, an understanding that we're all in this together and the belief that a single person can make a real difference for their neighbors,” Walz said.
Walz listed his proudest accomplishments from his time as governor, including cutting taxes, passing paid family and medical leave, investing in law enforcement and affordable housing, lowering prescription drug costs, and guaranteeing free school breakfast and lunches for students.
“While other states were banning books from their schools, we were banishing hunger from ours,” he said.
He also signed a bill into law protecting abortions and other reproductive health care.
“Because in Minnesota, we respect our neighbors and the personal choices they make,” Walz said. “And even if we wouldn't make those same choices for ourselves, we've got a golden rule: Mind your own damn business.”
Walz framed his pitch of Democrats’ “freedom agenda” around his struggle with having children with his wife Gwen.
“If you've never experienced the hell that is in fertility, I guarantee you you know somebody who has, and I can remember praying each night for a phone call, the pit in your stomach when the phone had rung, and the absolute agony when we heard the treatments hadn't worked,” Walz said. “It took Gwen and I years, but we had access to fertility treatments, and when our daughter was born, we named her Hope.”
He then turned to his wife, daughter and son Gus. “You are my entire world and I love you.”
“I'm letting you in on how we started a family, because this is a big part about what this election is about: freedom. When Republicans use the word freedom, they mean that the government should be free to invade your doctor's office. Corporations, free to pollute your air and water, and banks, free to take advantage of customers,” Walz said. “But when we Democrats talk about freedom, we mean the freedom to make a better life for yourself and the people that you love, freedom to make your own health care decisions, and, yeah, your kids freedom to go to school without worrying about being shot dead in the hall.”
Walz’s family joined him on stage after the speech, as Neil Young’s ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ played.