Vice President Kamala Harris previewed what may become a theme of 2024 this week, repeating the word “freedom” while speaking on The View.

“Frankly, I think most people don’t think of it in the context of democracy as much as freedom,” she said. “The freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body, the freedom to love who you love openly and with pride, the freedom to be able to be free from gun violence.”

“These are fundamental freedoms that are at stake right now,” Harris continued. “The freedom to have access to the ballot. I travel our country, and I have been in states that have banned access to reproductive freedom, to abortion, even in the case of rape or incest.”

With those comments and others, it appears Harris and the Democratic National Committee may be trying to win back the word from conservatives, who tout freedom as one of their major causes. The word has been used to name everything from the House Freedom Caucus to Freedom Fries in the early days of the Iraq War.

Now, Harris is using it for her own purposes. She’s embarking on the “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms” tour, which comes on the heels of her “Fight for our Freedoms” college tour.

Other leading Democrats are leaning into the messaging as well.

Previewing this summer’s Democratic National Convention for reporters in Chicago, DNC communications director Matt Hill noted, “One of the things we’re going to be stressing at convention is the values that are foundational to us as Americans, from protecting our freedoms and rights, defending democracy at home and abroad, giving everybody a shot at the middle class, and much, much more.”

DNC Chairwoman Minyon Moore added, “I will assure you it is no hyperbole that every day we wake up, democracy is on the line. Our freedoms are on the line. And so, we hope to set a stage not just for President Biden, not just for Kamala Harris, but for all Democrats to tell the story.”

Perhaps adding to this theme, the convention flag unveiled Thursday evokes the image of an American flag.

David Greenberg, a Rutgers University professor of history, journalism, and media studies, noted how freedom has always been central to the self-conception of Americans, even if it means slightly different things to the two major political parties.

“Freedom and democracy go hand in hand because democracy is, among other things, the freedom to choose one’s own leaders,” he said. “Freedom is both universally upheld by the American people, but also contested, with left and right emphasizing different aspects of it.”

Greenberg conceded that “sometimes Democrats have ceded talk of ‘freedom’ to Republicans,” though it’s often part of the rhetoric of Democratic presidents.

St. Louis University professor Joel Goldstein, an expert on the vice presidency, added that Harris is following in the footsteps of her predecessors.

“President Franklin Roosevelt gave the famous ‘Four Freedoms’ speech, and ‘freedom’ was a major theme in President John F. Kennedy‘s inaugural address,” Goldstein said. “President Biden has said that the ‘defense of freedom is not the work of a day or a year. It’s the calling of our lifetime,’ among other statements. It’s an inspiring theme and helps define some priorities and initiatives of the Biden administration.”

Ultimately, voters will decide which freedoms they prefer where there is conflict. For example, Harris’s freedom from gun violence pledge may upset voters who value freedoms guaranteed in the Second Amendment.

Eric Foner, a professor emeritus at Columbia University, traced the history of the concept in his book The Story of American Freedom and says Harris is on the right track.

“I have long urged Democrats to try to capture the idea of freedom from Republicans, who seem to think it means little more than owning a gun and not paying taxes,” Foner said. “[Freedom] is not fixed or predetermined, and there is no reason Democrats cannot try to appropriate it.”

But Craig Shirley, a presidential historian and Ronald Reagan biographer, says it’s not that simple.

“It won’t work,” he said. “Democrats have always been associated with the word ‘justice,’ and the right has always been associated with the word ‘freedom.’”

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Shirley also mentioned Kennedy as well but said that by Barry Goldwater’s 1964 campaign, “freedom” was becoming a word associated with conservatives. He says the U.S. is at “peak justice” right now, and voters are growing weary of justice-heavy rhetoric.

“Democrats are trying to take it because they’re in desperate shape; they’ll try anything,” he said. “The Left can say, ‘Well, you’re free to live under socialist rule.’ It doesn’t work that way.”