THE CHALLENGE
All people are created equal
Throughout, the promise of the Declaration endured. And each generation carried it a little farther than the one before it, widening the circle of those who could truly claim the rights America had promised from the beginning.
LADY LIBERTY’S CHAINS - AMERICA’S HISTORIC PROMISE
The Statue of Liberty represents "the promise of pluralism in a more fair and just society." The struggle to achieve, despite our flaws, is our promise - like Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, and Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have A Dream” speech.
Like the Democratic Creed itself.
OUR LIVES, OUR FORTUNES, AND OUR SCARED HONOR
The words of the Declaration of Independence move me still. Read them alone, in a group, in public. Hear the words - without commentary, without interpretation, without drama. Hear them as colonists heard them in 1776 - as British subjects casting off their monarchy and facing an unknown future - facing it with hope, with determination, with resolve. Without knowing what lay ahead for them or their families. But willing to try.
THE 4TH IS OUR SOUL
All people are created equal
The power of those words can be summed up in one simple phrase—Freedom, Justice, and Opportunity for all, the dream that has made America exceptional. We haven’t achieved it fully, and it’s under unrelenting attack by dark forces, but these words represent the underlying desire so many of us feel, this nation’s true North Star: a just society.
All people are created equal.
AMERICA’S PROMISE, OUR RESPONSIBILITY
This is a battle that every generation of Americans has contended with. Today’s generation is not exempt, nor is tomorrow’s generation exempt. We engage in this battle to defend the ideas that define America again and again. And if we must fight this battle, then let’s make sure that we are well prepared. Let’s sharpen our ideas, study past battles, and prepare to stand strong in defense of American ideas.
DECLARED, DEFENDED, AND LIVED
The Declaration of Independence declared America’s promise. Gerald Ford’s Bicentennial message and the Democratic Creed show how each generation must defend, renew, and live that promise.
VALUES AS THE FOUNDATION: GRASSROOTS DEMOCRATS BUILD A UNIFIED FRONT
Jamie Raskin: "Roosevelt didn't call our party the Democratic Party, he called us “The Democracy” with a capital D…. we need to build a huge movement across the country defending democracy and freedom and justice." We need a positive, unifying message.
BEING AMERICAN IS AN IDEA: The 14th AMENDMENT
What is the American idea? We’re tempted to run to the Declaration of Independence, but we can read the words here today in our 21st-century language. We can read the words in the Democratic Creed. It’s Equality, Democracy, Freedom, Justice, and Opportunity for every person, everywhere.
A WEDGE AGAINST OUR CIVILIZATION
We have tried to heed FDR’s warning ever since he delivered it - defending Freedom by dispensing Justice and granting Opportunity to “all our citizens, whatever their background.” It’s our Duty as a government of the people to carry out this mission, and to do it well for all, Equally.
A MIRACLE SHIP … THE PROMISE OF THE REPUBLIC
Her father survived the torpedoing of the USS New Orleans in the Pacific. Some classmates never came home from Vietnam. A daughter reflects on what Memorial Day asks of Americans today: remembrance, sacrifice, and the responsibility to preserve the promise of the Republic.
THE VALUE OF A VALUE
Hawaiʻi lawmakers are challenging the Citizens United ruling and the growing power of corporations in American politics. What is the value of a value? Values tell us when democracy has been betrayed — and why citizens must act to restore it.
BUILT ON AN IDEA
We've never fully lived up to that commitment, but God knows we have never, in 240 years, walked away from it. Never walked away from it. And we're not going to walk away now.
TODAY’S GETTYBURG ADDRESS —THE GREAT TASK BEFORE US
Two hundred and fifty years ago, our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all Americans are created equal.
BECOMING AMERICAN
Ronald Reagan said anyone can become an American by adopting the principles of the Declaration of Independence. We would add the Democratic Creed.
WHAT BINDS US TOGETHER
Thomas Jefferson at America's origin, and Barack Obama over 200 years later, pledged to this self-evident truth - that all people are created equal. Our Democratic Creed binds us together still as we continue the American journey.
2026 is Now!
We need to make people feel American again. This is about uniting and inspiring, because elections are decided by emotional connection. Whoever is the champion of American values wins by default. This American vision begins with the one thing that can unite and inspire all of us: the core values in the Democratic Creed.
WHAT’S NEXT
April 5th was a day of encouraging actions taken by millions of Americans across the country. At my location I met women in their 60s and 70s who have never protested before. I met a 30-year-old mom with a 3-year-old daughter who wants to save libraries so her child can learn about the diverse world we live in. And there was the disabled woman in a wheelchair with a sign that simply read “8647” .. 86 everything Trump stands for!
But what’s next, more protests?
I spent the next day discussing how we harness the anger, fear and frustration created by this administration’s efforts to tear down our country and destroy our way of life. This is not about government efficiency; this is about Trump consolidating personal power and giving his cronies access to government.
THE WEEK IN PHOTOS … AND VIDEO
April, 2 - Sandusky, Ohio: “The Party of Lincoln” is a myth that has lived far too long. “It’s laughable that Republicans still try to claim Abe Lincoln as someone who represents their values when they have abandoned those values,” said Kevin Cardone, a Norwalk resident.
April 5 - Toledo, Ohio: The Democratic Creed is read by Janet Ritter during the Hands Off rally attended by over 4,000 people in Toledo. Thank you Janet.
April, 5 - Portsmouth, Ohio: Dems 101 was also present at the Hands Off rally in Portsmouth with large banners for Freedom, Justice and Opportunity. Thank you Tom Yeager for making this happened.
WINNING
We are facing an assault on basic American values, the very idea of democracy itself. We have to win. We have to win big in 2026, big enough to overcome gerrymandering and every dirty trick in the book. If we don’t do that, if we don’t beat them at their own game, the real nightmare will begin.
We have twenty months to build a nationwide coalition big enough to pull it off. That means we have to create an emotional message that appeals to everyone, from the most Progressive Democratic activist, through unaffiliated and disaffected voters, right down to fed-up Republicans. They all have to buy in. We all have to.
That means a central message, an emotional message that unifies. We have to emphasizes the things we have in common, the ideals of our American heritage .. the very things MAGA is set upon destroying. That means that whatever else we do .. the resistance that is so necessary, the campaigning to come, even just venting .. this central emotional message has to be embedded in it. The emotional foundation is what holds things together, what makes the rest not only effective, but contagious.
The Republican machine put Trump in the White House by endlessly repeating lies and innuendoes. We have to flip the script. We have to begin repeating basic American truths endlessly, the same truths that underly every social and economic issue we have ever stood behind. These same basic truths touch most Americans, the very people we need to win over. Policies and political positions don’t, but underlying truths do. These truths and symbols are the emotional bridge that brings everybody on board. We need to seize on these emotional truths and the icons that represent them, and make them our own. We need to set these things deep in the American psyche as our identity: champions of democracy.
LINCOLN WAS A DEMOCRAT
Of course he was. He is. If Lincoln were alive today, he would not only be a Democratic leader and visionary, he would probably be the President of the United States. His vision of America stands for ordinary folks over billionaires, democracy over tyranny, justice over hatred. Indeed, Lincoln was FDR before there was an FDR.
“… that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth”
Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863,
Lincoln was a Democrat because he believed in Freedom for all. There can be no doubt he did. And so do we, each and every Democrat in America.
Lincoln was a Democrat because he believed in Justice for all. It was his guiding principle, and it is ours .. in words, and in deeds. The modern Democratic Party has fought for Justice for everyday Americans ever since our founding in the midst of the Great Depression and the rise of Fascism, in 1932.