Take This Election Personally

Campaign 2024 Has a Central Role for You to Play

On January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy delivered his first inaugural address. It is one that has resonated through history. It did so not just because it was impassioned, eloquent or because Kennedy was a compelling speaker. Rather it did so because it responded to a moment fraught with challenges with a vision, optimism and call to action that would define all the American mission in ways that still resonate today.

Indeed, although Kennedy’s speech was delivered 63 years ago, there are parts of it that take on new meaning in the context of our own times, a trait shared by many of history’s great addresses.

Here for example is the pivotal, most memorable moment of that speech presented with a little more context than the soundbite that is most often cited.

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility — I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavour will light our country and all who serve it — and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.

You can watch the speech itself here and I encourage you to do so. It is an uplifting experience.

Of course, “defining freedom in its hour of maximum danger” means something different now that it meant in 1961. While we face a world fraught with threats, today our maximum danger comes from within—from the strength and momentum enjoyed by a fascist movement in America that seeks to gut our democracy and strip away personal freedoms that have been core to the American identity for decades.

In many respects, because the threat is from within, because the enemies of American values have seized control of American institutions like the Republican Party, many statehouses and the U.S. Supreme Court, it is even more pernicious and in many respects more dangerous than even those Kennedy felt America faced at the height of the Cold War. The Soviet Union could only dream of such conquests with the U.S. or such ability to weaken our society. (Ironically, of course, an ally and beneficiary of Donald Trump and the MAGA GOP that openly seek to impose authoritarian, contra-Constitutional rule in the United States is the successor state to the U.S.S.R., today’s much weaker but nonetheless menacing Russia.)

An Entirely Different Kind of Election

At the same time, the famous phrase “ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country” is even more salient today.

The election that will decide whether America remains a democracy or not is different from any other in our history not just because of the stakes but because of the nature of contemporary campaigning. This is not an election that will be decided as many in our past have been by two centralized political parties wielding giant campaign war chests that enable them to buy massive waves of advertising in mainstream media. Those parties will be there. They will buy the ads.

But for most Americans the primary source for news will be social media, streaming services and on-line only news sites. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/717651/most-popular-news-platforms/) Increasingly the most persuasive media sites for people are those that are effectively curated or vetted by their friends—on line platforms on which friends and members of each user’s extended community refer content or offer “likes” that guide usage. That means that as important as big advertising spending is, referred messages delivered via social media and other on-line platforms will be critical in determining what content actually reaches the eyeballs and brains of end-users.

This is a trend that began in recent election cycles but is burgeoning to become dominant this time around. (We have often discussed this on our DSR Network political podcasts, especially our regular sessions with Simon Rosenberg and Tara McGowan. Here’s the most recent one: https://thedsrnetwork.com/entering-a-critical-month-in-campaign-2024-biden-can-do-great.)

The importance of the news and opinion and ads that come through you to your followers, family and friends is also growing not just because fewer and fewer people rely on traditional media sources but also because those sources have become more suspect or clearly biased over time. As we discussed on the podcast episode cited above, we must take into account the recent trend that has seen billionaires buying big media outlets and imposing guidelines to produce reporting that treats the Trump MAGA threat more “fairly”—meaning more uncritically, more like the Biden campaign, more as though it were a legitimate political undertaking and not an anti-democratic, pro-authoritarian threat to the existence of future free and fair elections in America. Major media entities like CNN, Twitter/X and the Washington Post have seen disturbing developments in this regard. The New York Times has also shown a misguided effort to both-sides Trump and this campaign in ways that are a disservice to the truth and to that publications asserted mission of publishing “all the news that’s fit to print.”

As I and others have often written, the mission of journalists should be to report the truth. “Fairness” and “balance” suggest that political actors deserve the same tenor and nature of coverage regardless of the substance of what they say and approaches that tout such dubious “virtues” end up promoting lies and disinformation as though they were facts.

Ask What You Can Do

What this means is that big political parties are not going to do the heavy lifting in this election cycle and that major media outlets are going to often be a distortionary lens through which to view the election. But it also means that the newly empowered curators and newly elevated voices of social media and other online news sources that depend on user referrals to get their word out will be decisive this time around.

That means you. You may have just a few followers on Twitter/X or Instagram or Tik Tok or Facebook, but those followers listen to you. By following you they have empowered you. They have said that they trust you. And those few followers not only add up. But they also have followers themselves.

You will be the one who tells them whether a video clip or an ad or a meme or post that you see is worth seeing. You will bring it to their attention. You will color their view of it. You will help motivate them to share it forward.

What is more by sharing the example of your engagement in this campaign you will be able to mobilize others to do what you are doing—to donate or to volunteer, to canvas or to help get voters to the polls.

In many respects, this will be America’s first big do it yourself election. You can make a difference. What is more you will make a difference. If you do nothing, if you do not share messages that matter, if you do not motivate those around you, you will be an obstacle to key messages being delivered. You can be a dead end on your corner of our network of networks and that too can have a multiplier effect that will make a difference.

Consider the positive multiplier effect for a minute. What if just one hundred thousand of us choose to do something every day to support the candidacy of President Biden, Vice President Harris and Democrats who seek to preserve our democracy and defend “freedom at its moment of maximum danger”? And those one hundred thousand each have just ten followers. And their ten followers have ten followers to which they pass along critical views or ideas or calls to action. And their ten followers have ten followers who have ten followers. Suddenly 100 million people have been reached and influenced. Suddenly a meme or an image has become a major factor in this campaign. And that can happen daily, hourly depending on how active you are.

That’s the reality of this election cycle. That is the reality of this moment in our history. That is “what you can do for your country.”

You are not just one small voice. You may never have been politically active before but the thrust of the idea behind Kennedy’s message is that you should be politically active now. That you must be. That we all must be. (And think of it—you actually have more than ten followers, don’t you? You can actually make a much bigger difference.)

Resolve to Make That Difference Starting Now

The election is less than five months away. As of the day I write this, that’s just 142 days. The polls suggest the race is close. You know the stakes are incredibly high. It can’t be emphasized enough: This is that “moment of maximum danger.”

Now is the time to step up, to do what you can do for your country. Spend just 15 minutes a day getting the word out. That’s less than 36 hours, a day and a half of your life, sitting in the comfort of your own home or in your backyard or poolside or on the way to work, to play a decisive role defending freedom. The stakes could not be higher. But your influence has never been bigger or more essential. Do it. Start now. Get others to join.

That is the response that our generation must make to Kennedy’s call. It is the one by which history will judge us.