Episode 12: Freedom from Fear

As we count down to November 5, Claire and Neil talk about two concepts that are intertwined for Democrats as well as Republicans

Image credit: GoodIdeas/Shutterstock.com

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We’ve got 17 days to go until Election Day. Both Vice President Donald Trump and former President Donald Trump are hot on the campaign trail, with Trump seemingly visibly low energy and feeling his age. Americans are already casting ballots: 39 states and the District of Columbia have begun unrestricted early voting by mail; 11 states are conducting early in-person voting, with the option to vote by mail for a reason; while two states—Mississippi and Alabama—have no early in-person voting, and strict eligibility requirements for absentee voting. Watch the full video to see Claire and Neil express their lack of surprise that these two former Confederate states do not encourage their citizens to vote.

Did someone say Mississippi Goddam?

But there’s also a new South, a swingy one coveted by both parties: my sister reports that her polling place in North Carolina was jammed and festive on the second day of early voting. Georgia has broken its past early voting records this week, while active efforts to protect democracy advance. A Georgia judge ruled that a new law, written and passed by Donald Trump’s allies in the state, that mandated a hand count, is invalid in 2024. Importantly, the judge also ruled that county boards could not legally refuse to certify election results; both measures might have thrown the state into a state of chaos reminiscent of 2020. However, it does remain a misdemeanor in Georgia to give away food or water within 150 feet of the outer edge of a polling place or within 25 feet of any voter in line. Violations are punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine. 

In Pennsylvania, a critical state for both campaigns, voters have requested 1.7 million absentee ballots as of Wednesday: 1,024,284 of these requests are from Democrats, 498,926 from Republicans, and 206,485 from independent voters. Claire and Neil discuss how false accusations of insecure voting by the Trump campaign in 2020 may be suppressing conspiracy-minded MAGA voters.

Today’s conversation focuses on two prominent themes in 2024 campaign rhetoric: freedom and fear. Topics we cover include:

• How Democrats and Republicans tend to understand the word “freedom” differently. Our research for this part of the show included Peter Slevin, “Kamala Harris’s `Freedom’ Campaign,” The New Yorker, (August 23, 2024); and Elaine Kamarck and William A. Galston, “Freedom—Harris’s Message to America,” Brookings Institution (August 23, 2023.)

• The Harris campaign’s reclaiming of freedom as a central concept for liberal Democratic governance, as well as its use of the Beyoncé anthem “Freedom” from her legendary Lemonade Album as the campaign’s theme song. Here are the full lyrics and official Beyoncé video.

When we discussed fear, we noted that this was a keyword in Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first inaugural—”the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”—a moment that launched the modern American liberal movement. We also note that “freedom from fear” was one of the four freedoms Roosevelt promised to the world in his 1941 State of the Union speech (Claire erroneously dates this as 1944 in the video chat—sorry!)

We discuss how Trump has consistently stoked fear, offering himself as the only antidote to political anxiety, and promising retribution against those who oppose him. But we also discuss Democratic fears of a second Trump presidency, based on the realities of his first term, threats he has issued on the campaign trail, and Republican policy programs like Project 2025.

Our research for this section of the chat includes:

• Tamara Keith, “Down in the polls, Trump pitches fear,” NPR (July 22, 2020)

• Michael Gold, “Trump’s Consistent Message Onstage and Online: Be Afraid,” New York Times, (October 1, 2024)

• Michael Goldberg, “Trump threatens long prison sentences for those who ‘cheat’ in the election if he wins,” PBS News (September 8, 2024)

• Niall Stanage, “Democrats Fear Trump Will Outperform Polls Again,” (The Hill September 13, 2024)

Here’s a short preview of today’s episode:

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Your hosts:

Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.

Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024). 

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