“It’s time to fight for America.”

With less than a month to go before the election, these fighting words were said to stiffen the spines of progressives and liberals, and awaken moderates to the anger and fear that is being promoted by those who root for candidates on the right.

“Fighting for America” may sound like a tea party theme, but this time, the call was sounded to rally Democratic-leaning activists for the hard struggle between now and election day.

Their march at the National Mall called on participants to “take back our country” by encouraging family and friends to participate actively in political campaigns, to register to vote, and to go to the polls on or before Nov. 2.

It’s about time. There should be stronger resistance to the notion that American enterprise has been unseated by hard times and bad decisions. The fact is that the nation is emerging slowly from a recession that can’t be blamed on either political party. 

Since the recession began more than two years ago, the Obama administration and Congress have put money into the economy to stabilize essential industries, keep credit markets open, provide a safety net for the unemployed and promote commerce. It’s been expensive but there’s wide agreement among economists that this spending averted a worse crisis.

The administration and Democrats in Congress also passed a health care reform bill and overhauled our ineffectual system of financial regulation. Some of the benefits of these reforms ”“ notably the protections for those facing dire illness ”“ are already apparent.

The jury is still out on the overall effectiveness of these efforts, but the claims that they are failures is nothing more than political propaganda.

In the final weeks before the election, we can count on name-calling and negative advertising to increase. But polls are ambivalent about the extent of the challenge Democrats will face because of one big unknown: The resiliency and participation of those who voted for hope and change  two years ago.