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When Joe Biden was the Democrats' candidate for president in 2020 and again in 2024, he staked his candidacy on being the person who would save democracy from the threat Donald Trump posed.

But Kamala Harris has shifted away from that message and toward the idea of protecting and advancing freedom. Freedom has become the theme of many Harris campaign ads and speeches. Her slogan "we are not going back" is meant to invoke concern about freedoms being taken away.

As scholars of citizens' commitment to democracy, we see a few reasons that promoting freedom might be a more effective campaign message than protecting democracy. One is that our research and others' has found that a lot of Americans aren't very concerned with democracy.

Wide support for violating democratic principles

In our research, we have found that when people think about groups that threaten their values, they are willing to support political representatives who offer protection against the perceived threat. Using a nationally representative sample of 1,500 respondents from 2019, we found that a large proportion of Americans are willing to support leaders who would violate democratic principles such as freedom of speech and following collectively agreed-upon rules and laws.

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