Make America Great Again Written Many Times
President-elect Donald Trump poses for a portrait at Trump Belfry on Jan. 17. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
"Make America Great Again."
The four words that would help propel Donald Trump to the White Firm were an inspiration born years before, when hardly anyone but Trump himself could imagine him taking the oath of office as the 45th president of the Us.
It happened on November. 7, 2012, the mean solar day afterward Manus Romney lost what had been presumed to be a winnable race against President Obama. Republicans were spiraling into an identity crisis, one that had some wondering whether a GOP president would always sit in the Oval Role again.
But on the 26th floor of a golden Manhattan tower that bears his name, Trump was coming to the conclusion that his ain moment was at hand.
And in typical manner, the kickoff thing he thought about was how to brand it.
Ane after another, phrases popped into his head. "We Will Make America Keen." That one did non have the right ring. So, "Make America Neat." But that sounded similar a slight to the country.
And and so, it hit him: "Make America Great Once more."
"I said, 'That is so good.' I wrote information technology down," Trump recalled in an interview. "I went to my lawyers. I have a lot of lawyers in-house. We have many lawyers. I take got guys that handle this stuff. I said, 'See if you tin can have this registered and trademarked.' "
(Alice Li/The Washington Post)
Five days later, Trump signed an application with the U.Due south. Patent and Trademark Office, in which he asked for exclusive rights to use "Make America Great Again" for "political activeness committee services, namely, promoting public awareness of political bug and fundraising in the field of politics." He enclosed a $325 registration fee.
His was a vision that ran against the conventional wisdom of the time — in fact, information technology was "much the opposite," Trump said.
To salve itself, the Republican establishment was convinced, the GOP would have to sand off its edges, become kinder and more inclusive. "Make America Peachy Again" was divisive and backward-looking. Information technology made no nod to multifariousness or civility or progress.
It sounded like a death wish.
Merely Trump had seen something unlike in the country, and in the daily lives of its struggling citizens.
"I felt that jobs were hurting," he said. "I looked at the many types of illness our state had, and whether it'south at the border, whether it's security, whether it's law and order or lack of law and society. Then, of course, yous get to trade, and I said to myself, 'What would be good?' I was sitting at my desk, where I am right now, and I said, 'Make America Great Again.' "
Democrats slammed it.
"If y'all're looking for someone to say what is incorrect with America, I'yard non your candidate. I call up at that place is more than right than wrong," Autonomous nominee Hillary Clinton said. "I don't think we accept to make America great. I think we accept to make America greater."
Her husband, former president Bill Clinton, went and so far every bit to declare it a racist dog whistle.
"I'k actually former enough to recollect the good old days, and they weren't all that skilful in many means," he said at a rally in Orlando. "That message where 'I'll give you America dandy again' is if you're a white Southerner, you know exactly what information technology means, don't you?"
The slogan itself was not entirely original. Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush had used "Let's Make America Great Again" in their 1980 entrada — a fact that Trump maintained he did not know until about a year ago.
"But he didn't trademark it," Trump said of Reagan.
His decision to claim legal ownership reflected a businessman'due south mind-set up. "I recollect I'chiliad somebody that understands marketing," Trump said.
Trump Organization lawyer Alan Garten said Trump holds upward of 800 trademarks in more than 80 countries.
The trademark became effective on July fourteen, 2015, a calendar month after Trump formally appear his campaign and met the legal requirement that he was actually using it for the purposes spelled out in his application.
Having won the trademark, Trump was aggressive in protecting his idea. When his GOP primary rivals Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker began tucking "make America smashing over again" into their ain speeches, Trump's lawyers fired off cease-and-desist letters.
Trump'south crimson trucker cap featuring the Make America Great Once again slogan was ubiquitious during the campaign. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Mail service)
More than only a chapeau
Trump was an impulsive and erratic candidate who ran a chaotic campaign. The one constant, it ofttimes seemed, was "Make America Great Again."
"I didn't know it was going to catch on like it did. Information technology'southward been astonishing," Trump said. "The hat, I guess, is the biggest symbol, wouldn't y'all say?"
At that place were plenty of snickers when his Federal Election Commission filings showed that his campaign was spending more on "Brand America Nifty Again" trucker caps than on polling, political consultants, staff or goggle box ads.
"An appropriate icon for his failing campaign," the Washington Examiner's Philip Wegmann wrote in late October. "The millions of hats will make first-class keepsakes for those who thought his populist bravado could overcome Clinton's unimaginative and conventional but well-oiled political machine."
Trump saw the hats every bit a fundraising and advertising vehicle. He was thrilled when his campaign headgear landed in the New York Times Mode department — during Manner Week, no less.
"In the Fashion section, information technology was the ornament — what do you call that? — an accessory. They said the accessory of the twelvemonth. You know the hat. You'd see people going to the fanciest assurance at the Waldorf Astoria wearing red hats," he exulted.
Equally is often the case, Trump's description is more than than a piffling hyperbolic. What the paper actually wrote was that the "onetime-school" caps had go "the ironic must-have fashion accessory of the summer," favored past hipsters for their "uncanny ability to capture the current absurdist political moment."
None of which fazed the celebrity billionaire who had debuted the hats by wearing one during a July 2022 trip to the Mexican border — or the legions of supporters who raced to snap them up. Trump had designed them himself, he said. The basic models sold through his campaign website were priced at $25.
"How many did we sell? Does anyone know? Millions!" Trump said in the interview.
"It was copied, unfortunately. It was knocked off by 10 to i. It was knocked off by others. But it was a slogan, and every time somebody buys one, that'southward an advertisement."
Notwithstanding many hats he sold, what cannot exist disputed is that "Brand America Smashing Once more" defenseless on. It was the almost effective kind of political message, seize with teeth-sized and visceral.
"It really inspired me," Trump said, "because to me, it meant jobs. It meant industry, and meant military strength. It meant taking care of our veterans. It meant so much."
[When was America nifty? It depends on who you are.]
That kind of mission argument was something that Clinton'southward entrada — for all its poll testing and high-priced advice from Madison Avenue — struggled to articulate.
Her strategists considered 85 possibilities for a general-election campaign slogan before settling on "Stronger Together," co-ordinate to an e-mail from the account of campaign chairman John Podesta that was published by WikiLeaks.
What they were upwardly confronting was goose egg short of "a marketing genius," said David Axelrod, who had been Obama's main political strategist. Trump "understood the market that he was trying to accomplish. Yous can't deny him that. He was very focused from the starting time on who he was talking to."
While Clinton carried the popular vote, Trump lined upward us he needed to win what mattered: the balloter higher.
"In terms of galvanizing the market that he was talking to," Axelrod said, "he did information technology single-mindedly and ingeniously."
Thinking reelection
Halfway through his interview with The Washington Mail, Trump shared a chip of news: He already has decided on his slogan for a reelection bid in 2020.
"Are you ready?" he said. " 'Go along America Great,' exclamation point."
"Get me my lawyer!" the president-elect shouted.
Two minutes later, 1 arrived.
"Will y'all trademark and register, if you would, if you like it — I think I similar it, right? Do this: 'Keep America Great,' with an exclamation betoken. With and without an assertion. 'Keep America Nifty,' " Trump said.
"Got it," the lawyer replied.
That bit of business out of the fashion, Trump returned to the interview.
"I never thought I'd be giving [you lot] my expression for iv years [from now]," he said. "Just I am so confident that nosotros are going to exist, information technology is going to exist so amazing. Information technology'south the only reason I give it to you. If I was, like, cryptic about information technology, if I wasn't sure most what is going to happen — the country is going to be great."
All of which raises the questions: How can greatness be measured and sensed? What does information technology fifty-fifty mean?
"Beingness a groovy president has to do with a lot of things, but 1 of them is being a neat cheerleader for the country," Trump said. "And we're going to show the people every bit nosotros build upward our armed forces, we're going to brandish our military.
"That military may come marching down Pennsylvania Avenue. That military may exist flying over New York Metropolis and Washington, D.C., for parades. I mean, nosotros're going to be showing our armed forces," he added.
Simply Trump acknowledged that slogans and showmanship will not be the ultimate tests of whether the land is "great once again."
The president-elect has an ambitious to-do list for the next four years: building stronger borders, keeping the country safe against terrorism, producing more jobs, repealing the Affordable Care Act, replacing it with something better, promoting excellence in engineering and science, investing in modern infrastructure.
Ultimately, it will be upwards to the people for whom "Brand America Neat Once more" was a covenant, not a slogan, to decide whether the 45th president has lived up to his promise.
"I recall they have to feel it," Trump acknowledged. "Beingness a cheerleader or a salesman for the country is very important, but you lot yet have to produce the results."
"Honestly, you oasis't seen anything still. Wait till you run across what happens, starting next Monday," he said. "A lot of things are going to happen. Great things."
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Alice Crites contributed to this written report.
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Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-donald-trump-came-up-with-make-america-great-again/2017/01/17/fb6acf5e-dbf7-11e6-ad42-f3375f271c9c_story.html
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