When Did Make America Great Again Start
President-elect Donald Trump poses for a portrait at Trump Belfry on Jan. 17. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
"Make America Dandy Again."
The four words that would help propel Donald Trump to the White House were an inspiration born years earlier, when inappreciably anyone only Trump himself could imagine him taking the oath of office as the 45th president of the United States.
It happened on Nov. vii, 2012, the solar day afterwards Hand Romney lost what had been presumed to be a winnable race confronting President Obama. Republicans were spiraling into an identity crisis, i that had some wondering whether a GOP president would always sit in the Oval Role again.
Merely on the 26th floor of a gilt Manhattan tower that bears his name, Trump was coming to the decision that his own moment was at hand.
And in typical style, the first matter he thought nearly was how to brand it.
Ane after another, phrases popped into his head. "Nosotros Will Make America Great." That one did non have the right band. Then, "Make America Neat." Merely that sounded like a slight to the country.
And then, it hitting him: "Brand America Great Again."
"I said, 'That is and then good.' I wrote information technology downward," Trump recalled in an interview. "I went to my lawyers. I have a lot of lawyers in-house. We have many lawyers. I have got guys that handle this stuff. I said, 'See if you can have this registered and trademarked.' "
(Alice Li/The Washington Mail)
Five days later, Trump signed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, in which he asked for exclusive rights to use "Brand America Great Again" for "political action group services, namely, promoting public awareness of political issues 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, it was "much the contrary," Trump said.
To save itself, the Republican institution was convinced, the GOP would have to sand off its edges, go kinder and more than inclusive. "Brand America Great Again" was divisive and astern-looking. It fabricated no nod to diversity or civility or progress.
Information technology sounded like a death wish.
Only Trump had seen something different in the land, 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 country had, and whether it'southward at the edge, whether it's security, whether it's law and order or lack of law and order. And so, of course, you become to merchandise, and I said to myself, 'What would exist good?' I was sitting at my desk, where I am right now, and I said, 'Brand America Great Again.' "
Democrats slammed information technology.
"If you're looking for someone to say what is incorrect with America, I'thou not your candidate. I think there is more right than incorrect," Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton said. "I don't recall nosotros take to make America neat. I think we accept to make America greater."
Her husband, former president Bill Clinton, went so far equally to declare it a racist dog whistle.
"I'm actually old plenty to remember the good former days, and they weren't all that good in many ways," he said at a rally in Orlando. "That bulletin where 'I'll requite you America swell again' is if you're a white Southerner, you know exactly what it means, don't you?"
The slogan itself was not entirely original. Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush-league had used "Let's Make America Neat Once again" in their 1980 campaign — a fact that Trump maintained he did non know until about a year ago.
"Merely he didn't trademark it," Trump said of Reagan.
His determination to claim legal ownership reflected a man of affairs's listen-set. "I think I'm somebody that understands marketing," Trump said.
Trump Arrangement lawyer Alan Garten said Trump holds upward of 800 trademarks in more than 80 countries.
The trademark became effective on July 14, 2015, a month after Trump formally announced 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 ambitious in protecting his idea. When his GOP chief rivals Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker began tucking "brand America great again" into their ain speeches, Trump'south lawyers fired off stop-and-desist letters.
Trump'south red trucker cap featuring the Make America Peachy Again slogan was ubiquitious during the campaign. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Postal service)
More than just a hat
Trump was an impulsive and erratic candidate who ran a cluttered campaign. The 1 abiding, information technology often seemed, was "Make America Dandy Again."
"I didn't know it was going to catch on similar information technology did. It'south been amazing," Trump said. "The hat, I guess, is the biggest symbol, wouldn't yous say?"
There were plenty of snickers when his Federal Election Commission filings showed that his campaign was spending more on "Make America Smashing Once more" trucker caps than on polling, political consultants, staff or television ads.
"An appropriate icon for his failing campaign," the Washington Examiner's Philip Wegmann wrote in late October. "The millions of hats volition make splendid keepsakes for those who thought his populist bravado could overcome Clinton'south unimaginative and conventional just well-oiled political automobile."
Trump saw the hats as a fundraising and advertising vehicle. He was thrilled when his campaign headgear landed in the New York Times Style section — during Style Week, no less.
"In the Style section, it was the decoration — what do you lot call that? — an accessory. They said the accessory of the year. You know the chapeau. You'd meet people going to the fanciest balls at the Waldorf Astoria wearing cherry hats," he exulted.
Every bit is often the case, Trump's description is more than a piddling hyperbolic. What the newspaper actually wrote was that the "old-schoolhouse" caps had become "the ironic must-accept manner accessory of the summer," favored by 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 2015 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 nosotros sell? Does anyone know? Millions!" Trump said in the interview.
"It was copied, unfortunately. It was knocked off past 10 to ane. Information technology was knocked off by others. Only information technology was a slogan, and every time somebody buys ane, that's an ad."
However many hats he sold, what cannot be disputed is that "Brand America Great Once again" defenseless on. It was the most effective kind of political message, bite-sized and visceral.
"Information technology actually inspired me," Trump said, "because to me, it meant jobs. Information technology meant industry, and meant military forcefulness. Information technology meant taking intendance of our veterans. It meant so much."
[When was America great? It depends on who you lot are.]
That kind of mission statement was something that Clinton'due south campaign — 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," according to an electronic mail from the account of campaign chairman John Podesta that was published past WikiLeaks.
What they were upwards against was nothing brusque of "a marketing genius," said David Axelrod, who had been Obama's chief political strategist. Trump "understood the market place that he was trying to reach. You can't deny him that. He was very focused from the start on who he was talking to."
While Clinton carried the pop vote, Trump lined up the states he needed to win what mattered: the electoral college.
"In terms of galvanizing the market that he was talking to," Axelrod said, "he did it single-mindedly and ingeniously."
Thinking reelection
Halfway through his interview with The Washington Post, Trump shared a scrap of news: He already has decided on his slogan for a reelection bid in 2020.
"Are you ready?" he said. " 'Keep America Nifty,' assertion point."
"Get me my lawyer!" the president-elect shouted.
Two minutes later, ane arrived.
"Will you trademark and register, if y'all would, if y'all similar information technology — I remember I similar it, right? Do this: 'Keep America Great,' with an exclamation point. With and without an exclamation. 'Keep America Great,' " Trump said.
"Got information technology," the lawyer replied.
That scrap of business organization out of the way, Trump returned to the interview.
"I never thought I'd be giving [you] my expression for four years [from at present]," he said. "Only I am so confident that we are going to be, it is going to be so amazing. It's the but reason I give it to you. If I was, like, cryptic near it, if I wasn't sure almost what is going to happen — the country is going to exist not bad."
All of which raises the questions: How can greatness be measured and sensed? What does it even hateful?
"Being a great president has to do with a lot of things, but one of them is being a swell cheerleader for the state," Trump said. "And we're going to evidence the people every bit nosotros build up our military, nosotros're going to display our military.
"That military may come marching downwards Pennsylvania Avenue. That armed forces may be flight over New York City and Washington, D.C., for parades. I mean, we're going to be showing our armed forces," he added.
But Trump acknowledged that slogans and showmanship will not be the ultimate tests of whether the land is "great once more."
The president-elect has an ambitious to-practice list for the next four years: building stronger borders, keeping the state safe against terrorism, producing more than jobs, repealing the Affordable Care Act, replacing it with something amend, promoting excellence in technology and science, investing in mod infrastructure.
Ultimately, it will be upwardly to the people for whom "Brand America Peachy Again" was a covenant, non a slogan, to decide whether the 45th president has lived up to his promise.
"I think they have to feel it," Trump acknowledged. "Existence a cheerleader or a salesman for the land is very important, merely you all the same have to produce the results."
"Honestly, yous haven't seen anything yet. Wait till you see what happens, starting adjacent Monday," he said. "A lot of things are going to happen. Great things."
Read more:
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'Finally. Someone who thinks similar me.'
Alice Crites contributed to this 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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