Make America Great Again.

When some Americans associate with the phrase ‘make America great again’ at what point in the past does ‘again’ refer to?

 

I would like to know what "great" means.
I know what it meant in history but this is now so being first to discover scientific things doesn't count...Most are discovered in teams of international scientists.
Military strength? Maybe but surely "great" means more than that.
The power of the dollar? OK...someone has to be the relative context against which other currencies are compared.
Cultural firsts? I am not sure...can't think of any right now. There is only so far you can go with pizzas and denim and rap/garage/grunge/drill music.
Maybe it means being respected as an international political influencer...well Trump whose slogan it is, put an abrupt end to that.

Today we live in world of communities, not individual nations. (I wish the UK would understand this). All over the world the nations are joining up in large trade blocks, alliances, sharing or protecting intelligence and data security, working together to make 2 + 2 equal 5. Sometimes these overlap as in the Far Eastern countries. Progress today is in the huge projects of space, AI and sciences of all kinds. Example...it took many countries to find a vaccine against Covid. I don't believe one country can be "great" all by itself. But as a slogan, it touches past glories, patriotism and all those mushy triggers that make some comply to whatever they are spoonfed.

 

that magical year 1954 i could barely walk and betty white was cancelled for having a black tap dancer on her talk show, but young trump found his father's playboy collection and began a lifelong love affair.

 

Probably goes back to Trump, then Reagan, and then possibly JFK, and a string before JFK starting with Ike and going back to Coolidge (but not including Hoover), then all the way back to Lincoln, then way back to Jefferson, then Washington..

 

I think MAGA just means going back to a time when we weren’t overly “progressive”
I do have a problem with that term being associated to the left though as most of their policies don’t scream “progress”
For example these idiots are trying to bring back racial segregation. How in the hell is that “progressive”?

 

Growing up post War II, in the 50's and 60's, for a young white male who's Grandfather was well respected by everyone in our small town, a town that was clean, wholesome and had very little poverty, or crime was America at it's greatest, at least in my almost 71 years. Banking was limited to local banks, there were many, many diverse products and locally owned stores with broad aisles you could actually walk through, with clerks you knew and knew you and really cared to make sure you got the product you needed at a good price. Most business were locally owned, the owner/manager sat in his office looking down on the sales or shop floor, and he cared about his employees well being. Most people worked 40 hour weeks WITH benefits (insurance and a retirement program) and those that didn't still benefited from fair wages and empathetic employers. It was a world few remember and no one born after 1980 would recognize.

Most of all WE AMERICANS were U.S., we may argue politics and religion but we would never, EVER stand against one another. And, that <-- alone made us GREAT! The thought that OUR Beautiful Capitol would ever be attacked by another AmeriCAN (much less thousands of them) would have never even have entered our heads.

 

Great is a comparison, measured by the time it's occurring, and the relevance to other times. In the 50's to60. We had won the greatest war in history, defeated the most evil regime in history, had unleashed an industrial machine that outpaced the world, had solid families building solid kids, a quality of life that was the envy of most of the world- and the people were hard-working and productive, as well as civil and decent to one another. Old failures of society were being overcome and ended, the concept of a more diverse and open economy was up and thriving... and most people were a lot safer than they are now.

In 1960, the population was 180 million, and there were 3,380,000 crimes overall.
In 2019 with a population of 328 million (less than double) there were 8,171,000 crimes overall- well over double.
Crimes of violence like forcible rape grew from 17 million to 140 million, over 800%. Aggravated assault increased over 500%
We have become a far more violent and immoral nation.

Productivity was soaring, because of the ethics and values of people. Incomes and the quality of life was steadily growing. In 1960, 68% of Americans could afford to buy a house. In 2019, only 43% of Americans could afford to buy a house. Those conditions are worsening with the botched policies of the pandemic and the rampant inflation the government denies, but we all know is there. The house you could afford 3 years ago now costs much more, often near twice what it did then. Today- employers are begging for help, and yet the workforce is not responding.... they seen to be too busy complaining, and depend on the next government hand-out. Credit card debt for Americans today is just over 800 billion dollars. But the FED has injected (printed) money into the economy totaling more than $4 trillion- increasing the national debt that we all carry by 5 times more than the total national credit card debt. They do this in a form similar to "Robbing Peter to pay Paul", meaning to postpone the inevitable of bad management, by making it worse. Much like paying your Mastercard bill with your Visa card, with a higher interest. They have- by arbitrary policy- severely increased the debt of every American citizen without your permission. This is unprecedented. Debt destroys the future; it is an ongoing burden. They won't reduce the principle... but the interest must be paid every year, and will never end. Everyone's financial picture is affected.

I was a young man in those times. Most people you ran across had a smile and were friendly. They presented themselves in public with a certain degree of dignity and pride in both attitude and appearance. Most put in a dollar's work for a dollars pay; they paid their bills, considered raising children a serious responsibility, with a duty to set proper examples. There are still many people like that- but far less than there was 60 years ago. If you were a time-traveler from 1960 coming to see the nation today-, you would be horrified by the attitudes, conduct and irresponsibility of today's population.

Great can pretty much be defined as the condition of the nation when your grandparents were running it. It could have and should have been much better today, but the fact is that later generations increasingly abandoned the values of those people and turned America into a kind of circus, run by corrupt (morally and legally) incompetents- voted into office by people who have no idea they are responsible for tomorrow as well as today. When you lose your values, and you raise children without values- the concept of greatness is your history, but will not be your future.

 

I feel it means making USA #1!! Like it used to be.

 

So far the sentiment seems to be zoning in on about 1953.

 

More like zoning in on a time where people treated each other with respect and worked together for a better world. No "woke", no cancel culture, no imaginary systemic racism as the excuse for crime and riots, no distortion of kids' minds by abhorrent teachers feeding on liberal pablum, no wacky ideology displacing common sense- and Americans working to improve America, standing on their own with some pride- not sucking the life out of it and blaming the nation for their own bad choices.

Nice people, responsible people, working hard, building a life and a nation. It is after all, the people who make a nation what it is, not the other way around. When you load team America with losers, you wind up losing. When you stop accommodating those people, things get better. Much like a ball team. To turn the team into a winner again, you start at the top- you start enforcing the rules, and they either shape up or get thrown out. That starts with the rule makers... In America, that is congress. Look at how these people do their jobs, and it's easy to see why the nation is falling apart.

 

I was only 2 in 53. My memory of my youth was magical. I remember a Dad and Uncles that were more confident and sure of themselves than any other man or men I've ever known, our mothers were their equal in every way. The people that raised my generation were forged in the fire and on the anvil of World War II, they were serious, motivated and without question PATRIOTIC. It wasn't until Vietnam started dividing AmeriCANs that the magical Post War II America started to unravel. IMHO, the 50's and 60's are what y'all are "againing" about.

 

We can simplify this by just defining it as being anytime before Biden. We need to make America great again because we're going downhill fast under Biden and the Democrats. People can't afford food or gas for their cars.

 

That's reactionary, and not even close to true. President Biden, while bucking unprecedented conservative resistance, is doing a good job. What America needs to fear is radicals, that feel they're losing or have lost power and want to seize control ... whatever the cost. "WE" are NOT going down hill fast, in fact OUR Nation is doing remarkably well considering we're entering the 3rd consecutive year of the COVID Pandemic. Nobody's going to hand a "Best President Ever" around President Biden's shoulders, but he's EXPONENTIALLY better than the man they divided this Country like never before and would have brought Government BY the People to and end, if he could have; just one year ago tomorrow.

My fathers generation would have tolerated none of that kind of talk, they fought to keep America, The United States.

 

So, right before the Boomers grew up and ran it straight into the ground. And how did the GQP choose to MAGA? By worshipping a grifting, treasonous Boomer to lead them...

 

If you were driving to Florida right now, you would have missed the turn and be on you way to Afghanistan. But you would still be closer to right than you are with the post you just made.
Pitiful when people refuse to engage reality and deceive themselves.

 

The period of 1777 to 1788 prior to ratification of the national constitution, in my mind.

The 50s had a lot of problems, tax rates for one were in the 90%'s. You had not yet lived up to the promise of the first amendment until 1968. Gun control was still rife.

Another good measuring stick would be the rise of the bureaucracy, which really kicked off between Teddy and Franko Roosevelt's terms.

In reality the phrase is dependent on the person hearing it, all it really represents is an agreement that the current path has gone horribly wrong. It's one of those phrases like "Build Back Better".

 

I liked 1978 there was a lot of blotter acid available...

 

looks more like we're zoning in on a time when the rat pack and playboy philosophy glorified conspicuous consumption, cancel culture was called the "black list" and "imaginary" systemic racism had long settled into lim crow segregation (is "e pluribus unum" latin for "separate but equal?")

"team america" has been loaded with losers since the evangelical witch hunters landed at plymouth rock and began "converting" the heathens. .

 

What about 1920 when women got the vote?
If again means before Biden, what about the time of the hanging chads when the government was decided by judges? Is that a moment of greatness?
I tend to think that America has always been both great and terrible in parallel, however that notion is difficult to abide by during all the slavery years and the oppression of the original peoples, when terrible was dominant.
Modern music is a child of the greatness of the American melting pot.

 

Clinton used the phrase in his campaign and later on for his wife's campaign in 2008. It was also used by Barry Goldwater in his election campaign. Each time that it has been used it was always in reference to the economy. Including by Alexander Wiley who mentioned it in a speech in the 76th Congress and by Christine O'Donnell in her bid for Senator in Delaware in 2010.

It wasn't until Trump came along that it suddenly had racist connotations. Hillary claimed that it was "code" to white supremacists that he would make the economy reflect what it was like for them "50 years ago" (referring to the Jim Crow era). The implication being of course that he would return the US to the Jim Crow era. And naturally Democrats followed her lead and ran with it. Which is why you now have Trump haters referring to things like Jim Crow and women not being able to vote etc etc. Never understanding that such is a literal impossibility.

However if you want to understand it from Trump's POV then this has already been answered.

LINK: How Trump Came up With His Slogan 'Make America Great Again' (businessinsider.com)

Remember, at the time the economy was still crap (this came about around the time Mitt lost to Obama). Obama had made DACA and DAPA and wasn't enforcing the immigration law as passed by Congress. BLM was getting started. Mass shootings were in the News. Everything he mentioned did indeed need to be fixed.

 

Well, when blue states turn red as we have seen in recent elections, apparently most voters don't agree with you. Also, not only do polls show Biden's dismal approval rating but they also show a higher disapproval rating than Trump had. But, keep on thinking that Biden is doing a good job.

 

You do have some points. I think all the screen time doesn't help.

But I think you only view extremes and most young people are more educated and aware than earlier times. I think they want more out of life than earning a wage, having kids and retiring at 65. Also, rape stats are probably up because it gets reported now. And I bet POC are happier living now than 40 years ago. Housing affordability is not unique to the US

 

Trump would have won if red States hadn't turned Blue. .

What are you talking about? ALL economic indicators, except inflation, show President Biden's policies are working. After two years of pandemic causing supply chain problems and pent up demand inflation isn't a surprise.

 

And from time to time with fools who think they are perfect and all others offend them. Of course there are such problems, and always will be.
Question is, are you working to improve what we are, or giving power to the most imperfect of all who throw the baby out with the bathwater?
People and nations are works in progress, never a completed task. People before you worked longer and harder and lived with less to move us forward to where we are today.
We discard goods and practices when we improve them- but until then, they are the state of the art.

We have a crop of extremely juvenile adults that think the world owes them a perfect life- which they don't feel they have, so they are angry.
IF these adult size brats had any real sense of responsibility, they would know that they alone are responsible for who they are- despite what others do or what surrounds them. They would quit whining and throwing tantrums and complaining for a living, and start building their own good life. Until they do- we have to tolerate a crowd of adult-size children whose parents did a damn poor job and failed to raise adults.

 

If you dodge the facts, you deceive yourself. More educated? More aware? No. Most graduates- high school and college- can't pass the final tests given to 8th graders 100 years ago.
My company does business in more than 100 countries, and I've been a business owner for more than 50 years. Communicated with a wide variety of people- worked in and with several nations- looked over a lot of employment apps and interviewed a lot of people. A substantial part of the 20-30 generation right now- can't spell. Can't do basic math in their heads. Don't understand the concept of directions, of north, south, east, west. College graduate gets lost, on the way to an appointment, calls in and says- do i turn left or right? Can't understand turn north. She relies on her cell phone to think for her... but her battery went down.
You see it when fast foods clerks get your order wrong half the time. When you give a clerk A ten and a quarter for a $9.25 charge, and they have no idea what to give you back. Or like the warehouse janitor I had some years ago who had a PhD. His parents paid for his education, and he stayed in school as long as he could to avoid the real world.

You responded with denial of facts. These people do that all the time. They don't like uncomfortable facts, such as nobody owes you and you are responsible for everything that happens to you.
When the place your at requires bringing more to the table than you have- you get angry. That is the source of the mal-contents of today- people that can't cut it unless it's easy of free.

Since I was married with children and a business 40 years ago..... NO, they are not happier today. They don;t know how to make themselves happy, they see that as a function of society or government. That tells you they aren't very smart either, in terms of savvy, of understanding how life and people work.

They COULD be. Everyone has the potential- but finding it and using it is something else. They would if they could but they can't because they won't, and nobody else can fix that.
You can tell them what they need to do to become wealthy, to find themselves and happiness, love and success.... but, that would require learning; changing their values- and sadly, they aren't interested.
Opportunity is everywhere, all kinds of successful people eager to share wisdom with hungry minds, investors eager to finance great ideas- and this generation isn't interested. What a waste.

When the mountain wouldn't come to Mohammed, Mohammed went to the mountain. Where there's a will, there's a way; and life will always present both challenges and opportunity- and those who wish to succeed must be willing to meet them. The last couple generations of America just figure they need to complain more, and it will be delivered to them....because they are entitled. and won;'t actually need to make the trip. That is the biggest obstacle of all; self.

Check the educational performance stats from around the world. Americans are not first, not in the top 10.... they are 26th. Our national average reading level- 7th grade. Our literacy rate is- 79%. Eight nations in the world, including North Korea- have 100%. Fact is, in most comparisons of skills- America is not in the top 10, anywhere. We didn't get to be the world's premier country by being that way, but we lost that position because we have failed to maintain the qualities it takes to do so. That is sadly- unlikely to change now. We're being out-hustled all over the world. That IS NOT smart.