Your Same Line of Thinking Is Also the Basis for Donald Trumps Make America Great Again Campaign
Trump Wants To 'Make America Great Again,' But What Does That Really Mean?
"Make America Great Again" is the driving refrain of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, the title of 2 Trump-authored books as well. Few would accept a problem with the first three words. But it is that quaternary — "again" -- that raises hackles.
Amusingly, Trump actually trademarked the slogan. Co-ordinate to the U.Due south. Patent and Trademark Part, one Donald J. Trump, an private at 725 Fifth Avenue in New York, has the right to "Make America Great Again" for "political action committee services" also as "fundraising in the field of politics."
Fifty-fifty amend, Trump — ever the marketer -- too has the merchandising rights. He owns the right to use "Make America Great Once more" on "all-purpose able-bodied bags; all-purpose carrying numberless; backpacks; beach bags; book bags; carry-all bags; change purses" and and so on. Even on "pet clothing." If it can be worn, Trump has it locked upwards.
Trump -- always the marketer -- besides has the merchandising rights. He owns the right to utilise 'Make America Great Once again' on 'all-purpose athletic bags...' Even on 'pet clothing.' If information technology can be worn, Trump has information technology locked up.
There's much dispute over Trump's legal cribbing of a phrase that one would have expected many pols to light upon. Indeed, Ronald Reagan used the slogan before, in his successful 1980 race confronting Jimmy Carter. Reagan, notwithstanding, apparently wasn't clever enough to trademark it — either that, or he was insufficiently mercenary. As The Donald doubtless would point out, that's why he's a billionaire and the rest of us aren't.
Ownership rights aside, a substantive question should be asked: Is Trump right? Proverb "let's make America great again" implies that it is not bang-up now. It implies too that there was a time when it was slap-up — or at least, meliorate than information technology is today.
The nation is 240 years old; the Constitution itself, 228. The ideals of the United States were best expressed in the 1776 Proclamation of Independence: "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that amongst these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The Constitution was created to make those ideals reality (indeed, the Declaration was explicit in that: "to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men").
Then in the two-plus centuries since, how have we been doing?
Our ideals were laudable, merely we began desperately. The Constitution explicitly acknowledged slavery and counted slaves as less than human — a error not remedied until the mail-Civil State of war amendments. Women weren't allowed to vote either — a fault finally stock-still by the 19th Amendment in 1920.
Indeed, one doesn't have to be an acolyte of the leftist historian Howard Zinn to recognize that the full benefits of citizenship in the U.Due south. were for a long time bars to the very few: For the most role, you had to be male, white, straight, propertied, educated, non a contempo immigrant and also (equally Native Americans could testify) not an immigrant from long, long agone.
Much of that, of course, has changed. Indeed, the story of America is very much the story of our growing understanding that everyone is entitled to those "certain unalienable rights." Sometimes that's happened through amendment, other times through legislation, court decisions or simply — and near powerfully — through changing attitudes. Fifty, 25 or fifty-fifty 10 years ago, it's hard to imagine women, African-Americans, gay folks or whatsoever number of other minorities thinking America was dandy for them — or at least, it's hard to imagine them now thinking that yesterday's world afforded them more in the mode of opportunities than today's.
And in fact, there's strong data available to support the notion that opportunity in America — and opportunity is at the core of the American Dream — is improve than it always was. Opportunity Nation -- a bipartisan project that has tried for the last 5 years to quantify the opportunity available to Americans — has merely released its virtually iteration of what it calls the "Opportunity Index." The numbers are encouraging.
The alphabetize scores opportunity numerically. On the national level, information technology concludes that opportunity has improved 8.ix percent from 2011 to 2015. (Back then, the score was 49.vi; present information technology'due south 54.0. The numbers — similar the Dow Jones Industrial Alphabetize — don't tell yous much, except that higher is better.) The index goes into detail too, measuring opportunity state-past-state and even county-by-county.
Vermont, it turns out, ranks beginning. Massachusetts is a close 2nd. Much of the South is well down in the rankings; New United mexican states is dead terminal.
Trump's slogan is ultimately pessimistic, bemoaning our times as so much worse than before, nostalgically looking back to some misremembered golden historic period in America. But that'due south non reality.
Why the differences? The index looks at three wide measures: the local economy, education, and community health (a catch-all that includes everything from crime rates to access to wellness intendance). The basic statement is that stiff economies, decent educational activity and safe and secure communities add together up to opportunity for everyone. Massachusetts does well because it has low unemployment and one of the best educational systems in the nation (aye, actually — the Bay State consistently gets top grades in the National Assessment of Educational activity Progress, the so-called "Nation'due south Report Card"). New Mexico, on the other paw, is hurt past its high poverty and poor rates of high-school graduation.
There are two key conclusions to draw from the index. Showtime, although the index doesn't incorporate data from before 2011, still it seems clear that if it attempted that exercise, the level of opportunity in recent times would bear witness far meliorate than they were in years past. The reason is straightforward: Opportunity for some is not opportunity for all.
The 2d is that opportunity is something that's inside our control. Most every factor that the index looks at is affected in part past public policy at the federal, state and local levels, including items such as preschool enrollment, access to grocery stores and affordable housing. Become those right, and nosotros make the American Dream ever more attainable.
Trump'southward slogan is ultimately pessimistic, bemoaning our times every bit then much worse than before, nostalgically looking dorsum to some misremembered gilded age in America. Only that's non reality. We're amend now than we ever have been. And we have it in our hands to make the years ahead meliorate still.
Source: https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2016/01/15/donald-trump-trademark-slogan-tom-keane
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