Who Used Make American Great Again First
President-elect Donald Trump poses for a portrait at Trump Belfry on Jan. 17. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
"Make America Great Once more."
The four words that would help propel Donald Trump to the White Business 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 Nov. 7, 2012, the day after Manus Romney lost what had been presumed to be a winnable race against President Obama. Republicans were spiraling into an identity crisis, ane that had some wondering whether a GOP president would ever sit in the Oval Office 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 fashion, the first thing he thought about was how to make it.
One subsequently another, phrases popped into his head. "Nosotros Will Brand America Great." That i did not accept the right ring. Then, "Make America Great." Simply that sounded similar a slight to the country.
And and then, it striking him: "Make America Great Again."
"I said, 'That is so skillful.' 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 can have this registered and trademarked.' "
(Alice Li/The Washington Mail)
Five days later on, Trump signed an application with the U.Due south. Patent and Trademark Role, in which he asked for exclusive rights to use "Brand America Smashing Again" for "political activeness commission services, namely, promoting public sensation 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, it was "much the opposite," Trump said.
To salvage itself, the Republican institution was convinced, the GOP would accept to sand off its edges, become kinder and more than inclusive. "Brand America Great Again" was divisive and backward-looking. It made no nod to diverseness or civility or progress.
Information technology sounded like a death wish.
But 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 disease our country had, and whether it's at the border, whether it's security, whether it's law and order or lack of police force and order. Then, of class, you lot get 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, 'Make America Not bad Again.' "
Democrats slammed information technology.
"If y'all're looking for someone to say what is wrong with America, I'm non your candidate. I think there is more right than wrong," Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton said. "I don't remember we have to make America swell. I think nosotros accept to make America greater."
Her hubby, one-time president Neb Clinton, went so far as to declare information technology a racist dog whistle.
"I'chiliad actually onetime enough to recollect the good old days, and they weren't all that good in many means," he said at a rally in Orlando. "That bulletin where 'I'll give you America great again' is if yous're a white Southerner, you lot know exactly what information technology means, don't yous?"
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 campaign — a fact that Trump maintained he did not know until about a year ago.
"Merely he didn't trademark it," Trump said of Reagan.
His decision to claim legal ownership reflected a businessman's heed-set. "I think I'm somebody that understands marketing," Trump said.
Trump System lawyer Alan Garten said Trump holds upwardly of 800 trademarks in more 80 countries.
The trademark became constructive on July 14, 2015, a month afterwards 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 aggressive in protecting his idea. When his GOP main rivals Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker began tucking "make America great again" into their own speeches, Trump's lawyers fired off end-and-desist letters.
Trump'southward ruby trucker cap featuring the Make America Great 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 cluttered campaign. The i abiding, it frequently seemed, was "Make America Great Once again."
"I didn't know it was going to catch on like it did. Information technology's been amazing," 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 Ballot Committee filings showed that his campaign was spending more on "Make America Nifty Again" trucker caps than on polling, political consultants, staff or television ads.
"An appropriate icon for his failing campaign," the Washington Examiner'southward Philip Wegmann wrote in tardily October. "The millions of hats will brand first-class keepsakes for those who thought his populist blowing could overcome Clinton's unimaginative and conventional but well-oiled political car."
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 Manner section, information technology was the ornamentation — what do you telephone call that? — an accessory. They said the accessory of the year. You know the chapeau. You'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 "old-schoolhouse" caps had become "the ironic must-have way accessory of the summertime," 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 i 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 by ten to ane. It was knocked off by others. But it was a slogan, and every time somebody buys i, that's an advertizing."
Even so many hats he sold, what cannot be disputed is that "Make America Great Again" caught on. It was the most effective kind of political message, seize with teeth-sized and visceral.
"It actually inspired me," Trump said, "because to me, it meant jobs. It meant manufacture, and meant military machine forcefulness. It meant taking care of our veterans. It meant so much."
[When was America groovy? It depends on who y'all are.]
That kind of mission statement was something that Clinton'due south campaign — for all its poll testing and high-priced communication from Madison Avenue — struggled to clear.
Her strategists considered 85 possibilities for a general-election entrada slogan before settling on "Stronger Together," according to an email from the account of campaign chairman John Podesta that was published by WikiLeaks.
What they were upwards against was nothing short of "a marketing genius," said David Axelrod, who had been Obama'due south primary political strategist. Trump "understood the market that he was trying to attain. Y'all can't deny him that. He was very focused from the get-go on who he was talking to."
While Clinton carried the pop vote, Trump lined upwards united states he needed to win what mattered: the balloter college.
"In terms of galvanizing the market place that he was talking to," Axelrod said, "he did information technology unmarried-mindedly and ingeniously."
Thinking reelection
Halfway through his interview with The Washington Postal service, Trump shared a chip of news: He already has decided on his slogan for a reelection bid in 2020.
"Are you fix?" he said. " 'Continue America Swell,' exclamation point."
"Get me my lawyer!" the president-elect shouted.
Two minutes later, ane arrived.
"Volition you lot trademark and register, if you would, if you similar it — I remember I like it, right? Do this: 'Keep America Groovy,' with an exclamation point. With and without an exclamation. 'Keep America Great,' " Trump said.
"Got it," the lawyer replied.
That chip of concern out of the way, Trump returned to the interview.
"I never idea I'd exist giving [you] my expression for 4 years [from now]," he said. "Just I am and then confident that we are going to be, information technology is going to be so amazing. It's the only reason I give it to you. If I was, like, ambiguous about it, if I wasn't sure well-nigh what is going to happen — the land is going to exist bang-up."
All of which raises the questions: How tin can greatness be measured and sensed? What does it even mean?
"Being a bang-up president has to do with a lot of things, but one of them is existence a great cheerleader for the country," Trump said. "And we're going to show the people equally nosotros build upward our military, we're going to display our military.
"That military may come marching downwards Pennsylvania Avenue. That armed services may be flying over New York City and Washington, D.C., for parades. I mean, we'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 state is "great again."
The president-elect has an ambitious to-practice list for the next 4 years: edifice stronger borders, keeping the country safe confronting terrorism, producing more jobs, repealing the Affordable Intendance Act, replacing it with something improve, promoting excellence in engineering and science, investing in modernistic infrastructure.
Ultimately, it will be upward to the people for whom "Make America Great Once more" was a covenant, not a slogan, to determine whether the 45th president has lived upwards to his hope.
"I think they have to experience it," Trump best-selling. "Being a cheerleader or a salesman for the state is very important, just yous still take to produce the results."
"Honestly, you lot oasis't seen anything nonetheless. Look till you lot come across what happens, starting adjacent Monday," he said. "A lot of things are going to happen. Great things."
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Alice Crites contributed to this study.
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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