Hes Making the Country Great Again
President-elect Donald Trump poses for a portrait at Trump Tower on Jan. 17. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
"Make America Nifty Again."
The iv words that would help propel Donald Trump to the White Firm were an inspiration born years earlier, when inappreciably anyone only Trump himself could imagine him taking the adjuration of office as the 45th president of the The states.
It happened on Nov. 7, 2012, the day after Mitt Romney lost what had been presumed to be a winnable race against President Obama. Republicans were spiraling into an identity crisis, one that had some wondering whether a GOP president would ever sit in the Oval Office over again.
Simply on the 26th floor of a golden Manhattan tower that bears his name, Trump was coming to the conclusion that his own moment was at manus.
And in typical fashion, the get-go matter he thought about was how to brand it.
One subsequently another, phrases popped into his head. "We Volition Make America Swell." That ane did not take the right ring. Then, "Make America Great." But that sounded similar a slight to the country.
And then, it hit him: "Make America Great Once more."
"I said, 'That is so good.' I wrote it down," Trump recalled in an interview. "I went to my lawyers. I have a lot of lawyers in-firm. We have many lawyers. I have got guys that handle this stuff. I said, 'Meet if you can have this registered and trademarked.' "
(Alice Li/The Washington Post)
V days subsequently, Trump signed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, in which he asked for sectional rights to employ "Make America Dandy Again" for "political action committee services, namely, promoting public awareness of political issues 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, information technology was "much the opposite," Trump said.
To salve itself, the Republican institution was convinced, the GOP would accept to sand off its edges, become kinder and more inclusive. "Make America Peachy Once again" was divisive and backward-looking. It made no nod to diversity or civility or progress.
Information technology sounded similar a death wish.
But Trump had seen something dissimilar in the country, and in the daily lives of its struggling citizens.
"I felt that jobs were pain," he said. "I looked at the many types of illness our country had, and whether information technology'south at the border, whether it'south security, whether information technology'southward police force and order or lack of law and order. Then, of course, yous go to trade, and I said to myself, 'What would be good?' I was sitting at my desk, where I am right now, and I said, 'Make America Great Again.' "
Democrats slammed information technology.
"If you're looking for someone to say what is wrong with America, I'k non your candidate. I retrieve there is more right than wrong," Autonomous nominee Hillary Clinton said. "I don't recall we have to make America bang-up. I call back we have to brand America greater."
Her husband, former president Bill Clinton, went so far as to declare it a racist dog whistle.
"I'g actually erstwhile enough to remember the good one-time days, and they weren't all that expert in many ways," he said at a rally in Orlando. "That message where 'I'll give you America great once more' is if you're a white Southerner, you know exactly what information technology means, don't you?"
The slogan itself was not entirely original. Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush-league had used "Let'south Make America Slap-up Once more" in their 1980 campaign — a fact that Trump maintained he did not know until well-nigh a year ago.
"Merely he didn't trademark it," Trump said of Reagan.
His decision to claim legal ownership reflected a businessman'southward mind-gear up. "I think I'k somebody that understands marketing," Trump said.
Trump Organization lawyer Alan Garten said Trump holds up of 800 trademarks in more than lxxx countries.
The trademark became constructive on July 14, 2015, a month afterwards Trump formally appear his campaign and met the legal requirement that he was actually using information technology 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 "brand America great over again" into their own speeches, Trump's lawyers fired off finish-and-desist letters.
Trump's ruddy trucker cap featuring the Brand America Great Again slogan was ubiquitious during the campaign. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Mail service)
More than just a lid
Trump was an impulsive and erratic candidate who ran a chaotic entrada. The one constant, it often seemed, was "Make America Cracking Once more."
"I didn't know information technology was going to catch on like it did. It's been amazing," Trump said. "The hat, I guess, is the biggest symbol, wouldn't you lot say?"
There were plenty of snickers when his Federal Election Commission filings showed that his campaign was spending more on "Make America Peachy Again" trucker caps than on polling, political consultants, staff or television ads.
"An advisable icon for his declining campaign," the Washington Examiner'southward Philip Wegmann wrote in belatedly Oct. "The millions of hats volition make splendid keepsakes for those who idea his populist bravado could overcome Clinton'due south unimaginative and conventional but well-oiled political machine."
Trump saw the hats every bit a fundraising and advertising vehicle. He was thrilled when his campaign headgear landed in the New York Times Style department — during Fashion Calendar week, no less.
"In the Fashion section, information technology was the decoration — what do you call that? — an accessory. They said the accessory of the twelvemonth. You know the hat. You'd see people going to the fanciest assurance 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 paper actually wrote was that the "onetime-school" caps had get "the ironic must-have fashion accessory of the summer," favored past hipsters for their "uncanny ability to capture the current absurdist political moment."
None of which fazed the glory billionaire who had debuted the hats past wearing one during a July 2022 trip to the Mexican border — or the legions of supporters who raced to snap them upwardly. Trump had designed them himself, he said. The basic 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. It was knocked off past others. But it was a slogan, and every time somebody buys one, that's an advertisement."
All the same many hats he sold, what cannot be disputed is that "Brand America Great Again" caught on. It was the most effective kind of political message, seize with teeth-sized and visceral.
"Information technology really inspired me," Trump said, "because to me, information technology meant jobs. It meant industry, and meant military strength. It meant taking care of our veterans. Information technology meant then much."
[When was America great? Information technology depends on who you are.]
That kind of mission statement was something that Clinton's campaign — for all its poll testing and high-priced communication from Madison Avenue — struggled to articulate.
Her strategists considered 85 possibilities for a general-ballot campaign slogan earlier settling on "Stronger Together," according to an email 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's chief political strategist. Trump "understood the market that he was trying to reach. You can't deny him that. He was very focused from the showtime 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 college.
"In terms of galvanizing the marketplace that he was talking to," Axelrod said, "he did information technology single-mindedly and ingeniously."
Thinking reelection
Halfway through his interview with The Washington Postal service, Trump shared a bit of news: He already has decided on his slogan for a reelection bid in 2020.
"Are you lot gear up?" he said. " 'Proceed America Swell,' exclamation point."
"Get me my lawyer!" the president-elect shouted.
Two minutes later, ane arrived.
"Will you trademark and register, if you lot would, if you similar it — I recall I similar it, correct? Do this: 'Keep America Corking,' with an assertion bespeak. With and without an exclamation. 'Keep America Nifty,' " Trump said.
"Got it," the lawyer replied.
That bit of business organisation out of the way, Trump returned to the interview.
"I never thought I'd exist giving [you] my expression for four years [from now]," he said. "But I am so confident that we are going to be, it is going to be then amazing. Information technology's the only reason I give it to you. If I was, like, ambiguous about it, if I wasn't certain about what is going to happen — the country is going to be dandy."
All of which raises the questions: How tin greatness be measured and sensed? What does it even mean?
"Being a neat president has to do with a lot of things, simply i of them is being a great cheerleader for the land," Trump said. "And nosotros're going to show the people as we build up our military, we're going to display our military.
"That military may come marching downwards Pennsylvania Avenue. That military may be flying over New York City and Washington, D.C., for parades. I hateful, we're going to be showing our military," he added.
But Trump best-selling that slogans and showmanship will non be the ultimate tests of whether the country is "great once again."
The president-elect has an aggressive to-do list for the side by side four years: building stronger borders, keeping the country safe against terrorism, producing more jobs, repealing the Affordable Care Human activity, replacing it with something ameliorate, promoting excellence in engineering and science, investing in modern infrastructure.
Ultimately, information technology volition be up to the people for whom "Make America Bang-up Once more" was a covenant, not a slogan, to determine whether the 45th president has lived up to his promise.
"I think they accept to experience information technology," Trump acknowledged. "Existence a cheerleader or a salesman for the country is very important, merely y'all still accept to produce the results."
"Honestly, you oasis't seen annihilation yet. Wait till you lot see what happens, starting next Monday," he said. "A lot of things are going to happen. Bully things."
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Alice Crites contributed to this report.
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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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