GUEST COLUMN: Can America be more free? | Opinion

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I consider myself immeasurably lucky to be a Democratic candidate for Congress at a time when my party is united around a message of freedom that could shape our nation for generations. Watching Kamala Harris' nomination at the Democratic National Convention brought home for me what is at stake. What began for me a year ago when I decided to run has become something so much bigger.

I am a millennial, first-time candidate who made the decision to run because I saw so much potential in the 10th District that wasn’t being realized. I felt my experience and my perspective are what’s needed in Washington. The incumbent, Congressman Mike Collins, is both dangerous and deeply unserious, which compelled me to enter the race.

But now I find myself part of history. Nothing could have prepared me for being part of this moment. This moment is bigger than all of us.

After years of worry and doubt, years of political menace and strife, we find ourselves at the precipice of a new beginning. While some among us had begun to consider the end of the America we knew, Coach Walz last week helped me reframe where we are. We are not at an end; it is but halftime in America. We may be down a field goal, but we come charging out of the locker room transformed, ready to renew the American promise.

In her acceptance speech, Vice President Harris called this election a “precious, fleeting opportunity” for our nation, a chance to put the threat of Trumpism behind us and “chart a new way forward” toward a new American freedom. There is a deep legacy of freedom in my party that felt alive last week at the Democratic National Convention. Instead of a thin, even cheap, notion of freedom that some hold—the right to own AR-15s, for example—my party presented a robust concept of freedom that aligns with the American promise: let every American live out their potential.

It was 83 years ago when Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt articulated a comprehensive—and uniquely American—notion of freedom. Roosevelt’s 'Four Freedoms' presented a vision of freedom that captured the bedrock promises of the Bill of Rights but included the crucial freedoms of security and opportunity necessary for American flourishing.

To be an American is to be free of an overbearing government, but to be an American is also to have the tools to change one’s destiny. One without the other is not complete. The freedom of speech is only worth so much when one is trapped living paycheck to paycheck or forgoes health care because it is unaffordable. What is freedom of religion when one’s wages have been kept too low to tithe? What is freedom when one is trapped economically? Increasingly, one’s economic mobility in America is largely determined by the economic status of their parents. At its worst it’s more fate than freedom.

True freedom, American freedom, means the ability to plan for yourself what your life is going to look like. Having your uterus controlled by your government doesn’t allow you that. Having your fundamental identity policed by religious extremists doesn't allow you that. But being given an economy that’s designed to keep you struggling also doesn’t allow you that basic American freedom.

I saw this whole American freedom on display in Chicago: the freedom from gun violence, the freedom from the government in your bedroom and your doctor’s office and the freedom from discrimination and hatred. I also heard about the freedom to afford health care, the freedom to raise your children with an extra $300 a month deposited as an instant tax cut, the freedom to care for your children with paid family leave, and the freedom to age in dignity.

I watched my party lay out a vision of freedom for families at the convention, from pregnancy and childbirth all the way to our seniors’ retirement years. It is an exciting time to be an American. There is so much more to achieve. The convention and our ticket convinced me even more that the naysayers are wrong; we are not approaching an end. We are just beginning.

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GUEST COLUMN: Can America be more free? | Opinion

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