Blacknwhitecomics – Make America Great Again

President-elect Donald Trump poses for a portrait at Trump Tower on Jan. 17. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

"Brand America Bang-up Once again."

The 4 words that would help propel Donald Trump to the White House were an inspiration born years before, when hardly anyone but Trump himself could imagine him taking the adjuration of part as the 45th president of the United states.

It happened on Nov. 7, 2012, the mean solar day subsequently Mitt Romney lost what had been presumed to be a winnable race against President Obama. Republicans were spiraling into an identity crunch, i that had some wondering whether a GOP president would ever sit down in the Oval Office over again.

But on the 26th flooring of a golden Manhattan belfry that bears his proper noun, Trump was coming to the conclusion that his own moment was at hand.

And in typical fashion, the kickoff thing he thought about was how to brand it.

1 subsequently another, phrases popped into his head. "We Will Make America Great." That ane did not have the right ring. Then, "Make America Cracking." But that sounded like a slight to the country.

And so, information technology hit him: "Make America Great Again."

"I said, 'That is and then good.' I wrote it down," Trump recalled in an interview. "I went to my lawyers. I take a lot of lawyers in-business firm. We take many lawyers. I take got guys that handle this stuff. I said, 'See if you lot can have this registered and trademarked.' "

(Alice Li/The Washington Post)

Five days afterward, Trump signed an application with the U.Southward. Patent and Trademark Office, in which he asked for exclusive rights to use "Make America Great Again" for "political action group services, namely, promoting public sensation of political issues and fundraising in the field of politics." He enclosed a $325 registration fee.

His was a vision that ran confronting the conventional wisdom of the time — in fact, it was "much the opposite," Trump said.

To save itself, the Republican establishment was convinced, the GOP would accept to sand off its edges, become kinder and more than inclusive. "Brand America Great Over again" was divisive and backward-looking. Information technology made no nod to diversity or civility or progress.

It sounded similar a expiry wish.

But Trump had seen something different 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 disease our country had, and whether it'due south at the border, whether it's security, whether it's law and order or lack of law and order. Then, of course, you get to trade, and I said to myself, 'What would exist good?' I was sitting at my desk, where I am right at present, and I said, 'Make America Great Again.' "

Democrats slammed it.

"If you're looking for someone to say what is wrong with America, I'1000 not your candidate. I think there is more than correct than wrong," Autonomous nominee Hillary Clinton said. "I don't think we take to brand America great. I think we have to make America greater."

Her hubby, quondam president Bill Clinton, went so far as to declare it a racist dog whistle.

"I'm actually old enough to remember the skillful old days, and they weren't all that good in many ways," he said at a rally in Orlando. "That bulletin where 'I'll give you America great over again' is if you're a white Southerner, you know exactly what it ways, don't you?"

The slogan itself was not entirely original. Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush-league had used "Allow's Make America Great Again" in their 1980 entrada — a fact that Trump maintained he did not know until near a year agone.

"But he didn't trademark information technology," Trump said of Reagan.

His determination to merits legal ownership reflected a businessman's heed-set. "I think I'chiliad somebody that understands marketing," Trump said.

Trump System lawyer Alan Garten said Trump holds upward of 800 trademarks in more than 80 countries.

The trademark became constructive on July fourteen, 2015, a month after Trump formally appear his entrada and met the legal requirement that he was really 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 "brand America corking once again" into their own speeches, Trump'south lawyers fired off cease-and-desist letters.

Trump's red trucker cap featuring the Brand America Not bad Over again slogan was ubiquitious during the campaign. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

More than just a hat

Trump was an impulsive and erratic candidate who ran a chaotic entrada. The 1 abiding, it frequently seemed, was "Make America Great Again."

"I didn't know it was going to take hold of on like it did. It's been astonishing," Trump said. "The hat, I guess, is the biggest symbol, wouldn't you say?"

There were plenty of snickers when his Federal Ballot Commission filings showed that his campaign was spending more on "Brand America Great Again" trucker caps than on polling, political consultants, staff or television ads.

"An appropriate icon for his declining campaign," the Washington Examiner'southward Philip Wegmann wrote in late October. "The millions of hats will make excellent keepsakes for those who idea his populist bravado could overcome Clinton's unimaginative and conventional but well-oiled political car."

Trump saw the hats every bit a fundraising and advertisement vehicle. He was thrilled when his entrada headgear landed in the New York Times Style department — during Mode Week, no less.

"In the Style section, information technology was the ornament — what do you call that? — an accessory. They said the accessory of the year. You know the hat. Y'all'd see people going to the fanciest balls at the Waldorf Astoria wearing red hats," he exulted.

As is often the example, Trump's description is more than a little hyperbolic. What the newspaper actually wrote was that the "erstwhile-schoolhouse" caps had get "the ironic must-take fashion accompaniment of the summer," favored by hipsters for their "uncanny ability to capture the current absurdist political moment."

None of which fazed the glory 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 upwards. Trump had designed them himself, he said. The bones 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 past 10 to 1. Information technology was knocked off past others. Just it was a slogan, and every fourth dimension somebody buys 1, that's an advertisement."

However many hats he sold, what cannot exist disputed is that "Make America Nifty Over again" caught on. It was the near constructive kind of political message, bite-sized and visceral.

"Information technology actually inspired me," Trump said, "because to me, information technology meant jobs. Information technology meant industry, and meant military strength. It meant taking care 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 entrada — for all its poll testing and high-priced communication from Madison Artery — struggled to articulate.

Her strategists considered 85 possibilities for a general-ballot campaign slogan earlier settling on "Stronger Together," according to an electronic mail from the account of campaign chairman John Podesta that was published by WikiLeaks.

What they were up against was nothing short of "a marketing genius," said David Axelrod, who had been Obama'south principal political strategist. Trump "understood the market place that he was trying to attain. You can't deny him that. He was very focused from the outset on who he was talking to."

While Clinton carried the popular vote, Trump lined up the states he needed to win what mattered: the electoral higher.

"In terms of galvanizing the market that he was talking to," Axelrod said, "he did it unmarried-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 yous ready?" he said. " 'Go on America Not bad,' exclamation indicate."

"Become me my lawyer!" the president-elect shouted.

Two minutes later, one arrived.

"Will y'all trademark and register, if you would, if you like information technology — I think I like information technology, right? Do this: 'Proceed America Great,' with an exclamation point. With and without an exclamation. 'Keep America Cracking,' " Trump said.

"Got information technology," the lawyer replied.

That flake of business concern out of the way, Trump returned to the interview.

"I never idea I'd be giving [you] my expression for four years [from at present]," he said. "Merely I am so confident that we are going to be, it is going to be so amazing. It's the only reason I requite information technology to yous. If I was, similar, cryptic about it, if I wasn't sure virtually what is going to happen — the land is going to be great."

All of which raises the questions: How can greatness exist measured and sensed? What does it even mean?

"Existence a great president has to practice with a lot of things, simply one of them is being a great cheerleader for the state," Trump said. "And we're going to show the people as we build upwardly our military, we're going to display our armed forces.

"That military may come marching downward Pennsylvania Avenue. That armed services may be flying over New York City and Washington, D.C., for parades. I mean, nosotros're going to be showing our military," he added.

But Trump acknowledged that slogans and showmanship will non be the ultimate tests of whether the country is "great once more."

The president-elect has an ambitious to-practice list for the side by side four years: building stronger borders, keeping the state rubber against terrorism, producing more jobs, repealing the Affordable Care Act, replacing information technology with something better, promoting excellence in applied science and science, investing in modern infrastructure.

Ultimately, it volition be upward to the people for whom "Brand America Great Once more" was a covenant, not a slogan, to decide whether the 45th president has lived up to his promise.

"I call back they have to feel information technology," Trump acknowledged. "Being a cheerleader or a salesman for the country is very important, but you still have to produce the results."

"Honestly, you lot haven't seen anything yet. Look till you see what happens, starting next Mon," he said. "A lot of things are going to happen. Great things."

Read more than:

Trump's Chiffonier nominees go along contradicting him

Surprisingly, Trump inauguration shapes up to be a relatively low-key thing

'Finally. Someone who thinks like me.'

Alice Crites contributed to this study.

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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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