Ben Rhodes

And then alternatively, there's a more progressive sense of national identity, a progressive story that I trace all the way back from the Constitution through the abolitionist movement and Lincoln and through FDR and Kennedy and King up through Obama that says what America is about is a country that is founded on a creed, an idea that we pursue equality and that we're extending that effort across the United States and around the world.

And I think that this has been missing in this country and in how this country talks to the world.

Right now, there's a sense that people have everywhere that it's not working, that the American experiment is in some ways unraveling, that I don't think that the life of my kids is going to be better than my life, that I don't know how the economy is going to function with AI.

I don't know what we stand for in the world anymore.

That's how people are feeling.

That is much more existential than just even important things like I want my ACA healthcare subsidies or I want the government to build more housing.

Those are important things.

I think what's missing for Democrats is what is the story?

You know, Obama launched in 2004 because he came along when Democrats were feeling on the back foot, and he told the story about America and what American identity means that allowed him to become president of the United States.

Like, that's how important speeches and words can be.

And I think right now we need political leaders in the Democratic Party or even in movements who are engaging in this bigger question about what is American identity?

What is it all about?

And where are we going?

And by the way, when we've done that well in the past, that shapes what we mean and stand for in the world.

And that FDR speech, the For Freedom speech, he didn't just lay out the case against isolationism and for support for Britain against Nazi Germany.

He said, this country stands for something.

We stand for four freedoms in this world, right?

Freedom to say what you want, freedom to believe what you want, freedom from fear of war, and freedom from want as well.

And those four freedoms became

the basis, not just of what America stood for in opposition to fascism in the war, they literally became the basis for the entire post-World War II international order.