Donald Trump has established his campaign on one overarching – and, honestly, incredibly vague – theme: “Make America great again.” He’s plastered it on posters and hats and T-shirts and he throws out this now-trademarked phrase several times in each of his speeches. But what does it mean, really, to make America great again? When we consider the so-called platforms of Donald Trump, that include building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico and placing a ban on all Muslims entering the U.S., we see an echo of a time gone by – a time that many of us may not actually want to remember as part of America’s history.
Because, you see, the most important caveat to Trump’s infamous slogan is not the first three words; people are always talking about making America great, how great America already is. But it’s the final word, "again," that has caused so much controversy and that others have applauded Trump for using, because it marks the first time a person has “run openly and without apology on a platform of American decline.” Recognizing America’s flaws is taboo in the world of politics, the sort of move to have any other presidential candidate destroyed by the American public – although Trump already appears to be rather immune to the typical public outrage, even when he flip-flops on pivotal voter issues.
Despite the obvious importance of Trump challenging such typical roles of politicians, especially those running for president, let us consider the greatness to which Trump strives to return us. He praises dictators like Saddam Hussein; he refuses to actually utter the phrase Black Lives Matter and instead delivers a very Trump, trying-to-have-it-all response to the recent violence; he generalizes all of Mexico’s people as drug dealers and rapists. These are Trump’s founding beliefs.
In a Humans of New York post recently, a man stated, “We’re the worst terrorists in the world and it was a long time coming. The entire country was built on the slaughter of innocents.” The America that Trump props up is not one of openness, kindness; it is not the melting pot that America so proudly deemed itself. To Trump, in order to make America great, we have to return to the time where we saw ourselves as better than people of other races. Where we justified murder and abuse and utter dehumanization because we saw people of other races as less than – less than human, less than us. For Donald Trump, America wasn’t great because it was a world power that became famous for its open borders and its mixed heritages. It was great because it used the blood of innocents to pave the roads to global significance.
In this same HONY thread, a woman commented, “Great doesn’t have to mean good, either. As was said in 'Harry Potter,' ‘He Who Must Not Be Named did great things. Terrible, yes. But great.’” Great does not always mean good or positive. Great does not necessarily mean, in the terms of America’s future, that this nation will rise up and reclaim its title as a global power. Take a look at the news recently – America needs stabilization, it needs a guiding force to help calm the terrors that are sweeping the country. America is not in danger of falling apart due to outside forces. It is in danger of tearing itself apart from the inside out.
So take a look at Donald Trump, at his “policies,” at his speeches. And ask yourself: if Donald Trump becomes president and successfully makes America “great” again, what will that mean? What will that look like?
And how will we explain ourselves to the rest of the world if this "greatness" is really achieved?
