Revisiting ‘Make America Great Again’

It’s been over a year since Donald Trump has been sworn into office. How does his campaign slogan of ‘Make America Great Again’ hold up?

Well, unsurprisingly, not too spectacular.

To start with, Making American Great Again is the antithesis of being even more beholden to the military-industrial-security complex, with a newly proposed $716 billion gift to the Pentagon. It is not inflaming tensions with a faraway dictator who has nuclear weapons. It is not bowing to another state, more than former presidential supplicants, because AIPAC and other pro-Israel lobbyists have filled your pockets. It is not rescinding states’ rights on their marijuana policies. Making America Great would not be reflected in calling neo-Nazis ‘good’ people and turning one’s back on our southern territory, Puerto Rico, when it’s most in need. It is not staying mum on white supremacist terrorism, while jumping up and down at the faintest hint of Islamic terrorism. It is not being the laughing stock of the entire world (arguably even more than under the second president Bush), due to the infantile, imbecilic behavior of a toddler who escaped from its crib.

No. None of this qualifies as ‘greatness’.

If your voters continue to hold you dear, it’s unlikely because what you’ve done in office, but rather the symbol that you still represent to them. Discouraged by the status quo that outsourced their jobs and, in return, stagnated their wages, you remain a false hope that a beneficial change may still come about. Since psychical attachment and loyalty are difficult shatter, it’s hard for them to realize that you’re a complete fraud. Thus, when you’re castigated by the destabilizer of the Middle East, W. Bush, and spineless Democrats throw Russian meddling accusations at you, your adherents stand firmly by your side. Indeed, the popular opposition is a pathetically inadequate McCarthyite bunch who fetishize the new Cold War’s intensification. They love wars that you’ve exacerbated in Syria and Afghanistan, just as they supported Obama’s Syria intervention and his NATO-delivered anarchy hell in Libya.

To Make America Great, radical change is needed, from which honest politics and policy can recover. Principled statesmen are required – unlike Nancy Pelosi and Paul Ryan who are deluged with big money interests; but more like Bernie Sanders, Nina Turner, Ron/Rand Paul and Pat Buchanan, who actually believe in their ideals. Once the tide shifts to a new ‘radicalism’ (as it would now be radical for a politician to serve public interests), rather than today’s empty corpse through which lobbyist parasites infiltrate, a new paradigm can emerge. This will give way to vibrant discourse and the rational debate of issues, addressing genuine concerns of the American people.

Though Pat Buchanan and Bernie may have divergent views on immigration, they agree that the endless war is detrimental to democracy’s health, and their ideas are not controlled by monetary gifts.

With an end to lobbyist money, endless war and the security state – reasoned, publicly-minded debates will allow for the rudiments to indeed Make American Great.

The question remains one for us: can we shun the soulless ghouls heading the Republican and Democratic parties, while also not get suckered in by populist, billionaire hucksters who feign solidarity with the working class?

As a prolific author from the Boston area, Peter F. Crowley writes in various forms, including short fiction, op-eds, poetry and academic essays. In 2020, his poetry book Those Who Hold Up the Earth was published by Kelsay Books and received impressive reviews by Kirkus Review, the Bangladeshi New Age and two local Boston-area newspapers. His writing can be found in Middle East Monitor, Znet, 34th Parallel, Pif Magazine, Galway Review, Digging the Fat, Adelaide’s Short Story and Poetry Award anthologies (finalist in both) and The Opiate.

His forthcoming books, due out later in 2023, are That Night and Other Stories (CAAB Publishing) and Empire’s End (Alien Buddha Press)