When We Were Great

 When Donald Trump's campaign unveiled the "Make America Great" slogan at the start of his 2016 presidential run, it was a stroke of genius, if you characterize genius as manipulation that works seamlessly and benefits a few power hungry, money grubbing opportunists while leaving a majority of Americans poor, unhealthy, stressed, angry, and blaming one another.

When conservative Republicans latched on to Trump and the MAGA meme, it sounded great. I sounded great because most Americans were highly dissatisfied with the current state of the US and the direction in which they perceived it as heading. Of course, many white Americans who felt themselves losing ground  while faced with the first Black American president in the country's history, sought to place the blame on Barack Obama.

It had to be his fault, they rationalized, his and those who supported him. It had to be Democrats' fault that the fabric of the country they loved seemed to be fraying and they no longer felt good about their prospects or themselves. And by Democrats they meant anyone who was 'other', anyone who wasn't WASPy, heterosexual, or tree-hugging. They were the enemy.

Many moderate Republicans failed to take Trump's campaign seriously at first, and were sure he his boorish behavior and mindless rhetoric would cause him to quickly fall by the wayside. They underestimated their constituents' hunger for change that only seemed possible with a political outsider. A wealthy, loud talking, boastful demagogue who would challenge the status quo seemed to fit the bill perfectly.

Can we really blame people who felt they were losing ground in every way for latching on to someone they perceived as a savior? After all, he was one of the most successful businessmen in the US, as far as they could tell. So, he had to be smart, or at least shrewd. He claimed to be a protestant Christian, and a claim was all they required. He had a young wife who would look good on stage, so that worked. 

In truth, all Trump really had to do to gain Republicans voters trust and support was be dogmatic and go against the grain. Democratic party strategists understood this. They understood it well enough to devise their now infamous "Pied Piper" strategy. They sought to elevate Trump, mistakenly assuming that in the end voters would reject him as wholly unsuitable to highest office in the land and ensure Hillary Clinton's win.

Biggest miscalculation in modern American politics.

So, Trump became the candidate Republican voters just couldn't, or wouldn't, quit. Moderate GOP politicians resigned themselves to riding the wave and becoming Trump apologists to save their own skins and hopefully come out on the other side of a Trump presidency intact. They knew they would look bad from time to time and be accused of hypocrisy on a regular, but that kind of calling out goes with the territory.

So, now it's 2021, Trump has been defeated, and Americans are no better off than we were before him. We're certainly not "great again," and Trump was never going to make us great. Donald Trump was only going to make average Americans more angry, more confused, more uneducated, more unhealthy, more poor, and more divided, because the entirety of what he put forth to get elected and maintain the support of his base is fraudulent.

It's going to take a lot of people a long time to come to terms with that uncomfortable truth, but in time they will. As Trump fades into the background and they realize he was never actually leading, and was kept afloat by their unquestioning support, attachment to conspiracy theories, and willingness to overlook the absence of substance, proof, and progress, they will come around.

What will we be left with then? We will, all of us, be left with the undeniable fact that America is not great and was not great while Trump was in office. Truth be told, we were a hot mess, and the rest of the world will attest to that characterization and reassure us of if we have any illusions or doubt. No one wants to be us. We look to the rest of the world like a failed experiment.

Can America be great? 

Maybe we have to first ask ourselves if we were ever great at any point in our history. A lot of Americans will contend without reservation that this country has never been great. We've been regarded as a world leader, no doubt, but as we've all seen, an individual or an institution can be large and in charge even though it's corrupt, immoral, and destructive. That's not greatness, it's just imperialism, and that's what we've been best at since European explorers first landed on our shores.

I think greatness is attainable for the United States. We're at a low, maybe even an all-time low, but I think there's enough desire left in us to accept the challenge and make this a country we're proud of. It's going to take a great deal of work, and before that work can begin it's going to take a great deal of introspection and honesty with ourselves. If we're willing to set our egos and pettiness aside and face facts, greatness could be in our near future.

We can do this!