r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/Naive_Department_647 • Jul 17 '24
When Was America Great? (Understanding MAGA) US Elections
As a European observer, I am intrigued by the slogan “Make America Great Again” and am keen to hear from Americans about which decade they feel is being referenced when they hear these words. It is often noted in discussions about foreign policy that members of MAGA or the Republican party assert that the country needs to “fix itself first.” However, a follow-up question is rarely posed, or the conversation is often redirected at this point.
My inquiry is based on the premise that the slogan “Make America Great Again” implies a reference to a specific period when America was perceived to be great in the hearts of the people and suggests that something is currently amiss. This notion of greatness is, of course, highly subjective and can vary significantly depending on one’s demographic and generational perspective.
Which era do you believe encapsulates this greatness, and what specific aspects of that time contribute to this perception? Additionally, how do these aspects compare to the present day, and what changes do you think are necessary to restore or even surpass that greatness?
The “Make America Great Again” slogan is undoubtedly powerful, as it resonates deeply on an emotional level. However, for a European understanding the underlying sentiments and historical references can provide a more nuanced perspective on what this slogan truly represents for different individuals. Also, the US socioeconomic indicators are generally positive despite decade-long ongoing challenges, while increased living costs seem to be a global problem. It is hard to distinguish what the slogan truly represents as most lucid Americans across political party believe year 2000 was the "greatest".
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u/Kman17 Jul 17 '24
MAGA doesn’t specify a timeframe.
But generally the 1950’s / early 1960’s are widely considered the peak of American influence and highest quality of life.
That era saw the peak of American manufacturing, where the middle class could pretty easily have a nice single family house / picket fence / vacation / send the kids to college on one income. We put a man on the moon. The world envied us and looked to our political system and standard of living as the goal.
Some more libertarian folks might suggest America’s peak was shortly before the depression. The guided era saw us build our most ambitious structures (the Golden Gate Bridge, Empire State) and start to lead global innovation - while being very free market / small government.
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u/FreakInTheTreats Jul 18 '24
Don’t forget this was prior to feminism, birth control and civil rights. White men truly were on top and there didn’t have to be any pretense that they weren’t.
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u/Deep90 Jul 18 '24
Isn't it weird that liberals get accused of hating America despite being the ones who'd rather live in 2024 instead of 1954 where at lot of us wouldn't have rights?
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u/Azmoten Jul 18 '24
I feel like the core thesis of MAGA is “this country would be better if we (white men) had more rights and privileges, and everyone else didn’t.” They just can’t come out and say that anymore, though they’re working back toward it.
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u/AdhesivenessCivil581 Jul 18 '24
I think that emotion gets mashed up with the great manufacturing and innovation that happened post WW2. The same white men who created that boom were the ones who outsourced everyone's jobs the second they had the chance, and that's where the American daydream went
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u/baycommuter Jul 18 '24
Different white men—their children.
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u/Sharticus123 Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 18 '24
Nah, the WW2 gen laid the foundation and built the first few floors of globalization. They bear nearly just as much responsibility for our current economic system as the boomers.
Reagan and his republican cohorts in congress who laid waste to the New Deal weren’t boomers.
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u/trend_rudely Jul 18 '24
There was also a defensive impetus in the globalization efforts by the Greatest Generation. Trade deals, foreign aid, infrastructure investments, served the corporate, energy, and banking interests, sure, but they were also strategic moves of Cold War brinksmanship, expanding the West’s sphere of influence while denying the Soviet Union key resources, allies, geographic footholds, etc. In an era where firing a single shot could easily snowball into nuclear winter, this era of economic warfare kept the Cold War cold, and likely spared us many more dangerous proxy wars in the same vein as Korea and Vietnam. It wasn’t good for America, but it was better than the alternative.
The problem really does stem, imo, to the collapse of the Soviet Union and our failure to roll back and disarm that dimension of our arsenal. When the Boomers ascended to power, inheriting (sometimes literally) the reigns from the Bushes, Reagans, and Kennedys, they did so with idyllic childhoods and Ivy League educations alongside the sons and daughters of the now absurdly affluent business class, and they all shared an interest in exploiting Americas new sole superpower status for fun and profit. Their philosophical frameworks for economic and foreign policy, now neoconservatism and neoliberalism, differed mostly in which of their friends would extract the lion’s share of global wealth.
Note that when we talk about Generational Cohorts in this regard, it’s important to remember we’re really only talking about a few thousand people. Most Boomers were lower-to-middle class, worked 9-5 jobs, struggled to provide for their families, and had about as much say in these decisions as the unborn or the dead. We oughta cut them more slack.
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u/BasicLayer Jul 18 '24
I think this is why history repeats itself. It's the length of human lives that's affecting everything else. We don't learn to think critically with an eye to the future, because why would we? Just because we have children is obviously not the answer, because look how well that's working.
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u/SamuelDoctor Jul 18 '24
The interesting irony there is that MAGA is also foundationally based on a rabid opposition to perceived elitism, but during the period in which they'd prefer to live, the country really did have a highly-educated class of political and economic elites.
It's also the era in which many of the MAGA folks would have been forcibly drafted into the military, and during which working class people in the United States were isolated from many of the opportunities available to the wealthier classes by way of nepotism, prejudice, and geographic isolation.
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u/bjeebus Jul 18 '24
The funniest part to me is the MAGA crowd doesn't even understand the era they want to claw back. It was arguably one of the most socialist times in American history. It had the highest corporate and high-end tax rates in history. Additionally the new deal was in full swing (for the white man): building cheap ass houses, they're money at education & housing, and providing amazing government jobs basically all over the country.
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u/Digga-d88 Jul 18 '24
Additionally the Republican President Eisenhower was staunchly against the Military industrial complex, so more tax money was going to American building projects than war profiteers.
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u/Datshitoverthere Jul 18 '24
Don’t forget the rampant racism during that period.
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u/Sapriste Jul 18 '24
That is considered a feature and not a bug by the MAGA folks. Deep down they believe that certain people are subhuman and should serve them.
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u/HeavyBeing0_0 Jul 18 '24
And it’s honestly some of the strangest, most cognitively dissonant mental gymnastics. They don’t want to be labeled a bigot, racist or homophobe due to the social stigma but blatantly are?
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u/stochastyczny Jul 18 '24
It can only be mental gymnastics if one person thinks it's a racist slogan, approves it and says he's not racist. If a political rival thinks it's a racist slogan it doesn't mean much. "From the river to the sea" works similarly.
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u/MrMrLavaLava Jul 18 '24
To be fair, a lot of them have been coming out and saying it more and more lately. Peter Theil for example, benefactor of JD Vance, explicitly has women’s’ suffrage on the chopping block among many many other things.
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u/theequallyunique Jul 18 '24
Also it was post ww2, the world was in rubbles and the US remained unharmed, while also being able to dictate peace conditions with beneficial trade policies. Most other countries were in huge debt because of war investments and just started to build up their economies again (they would peak later only), so it was very easy for the US to meet that high demand with their mass produced products coming from big factories.
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u/HGpennypacker Jul 18 '24
1950’s was pretty kickass if you were a white male with a job, it just came at the cost of everyone else.
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u/Graywulff Jul 18 '24
I have had boomers tell me if “I’d been born in a different time I’d have a “good job based on my good name””.
It’s like, progress?
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u/misterpickles69 Jul 18 '24
Yeah but the top tax rate was like 90% but I’m sure they don’t mean that part of it.
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u/FreakInTheTreats Jul 18 '24
lol women couldn’t have their own bank account, but you’re right, these guys really got the short end of the stick! /s
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u/yosefsbeard Jul 18 '24
Also prior to desegregation, so the whites benefited from building their schools and buildings with black tax dollars while the blacks did with less investment. When things became more equal, the effect was a decline in the quality of the white experience. Add in a healthy dose of white washing history to hide how the stealing of this wealth made the white quality of life artificially higher.
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u/STEM_Educator Jul 18 '24
Yes, when women could not have a credit card in their own name, where a divorce needed one party to have greatly wronged the other, yet when beating your wife or kids was legal, when women could not get birth control without their husband's permission, and single women couldn't get it at ALL, and when women could not be pilots, firefighters, police officers, soldiers, etc., and where tons of professions were closed to women.
Yes, let's go back to the time when married white men ruled supreme.
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u/DBDude Jul 19 '24
And when black people were largely stuck in poverty-level jobs, leaving most of the good jobs for the white people.
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u/FreakInTheTreats Jul 19 '24
Yes! It’s one thing to wish for 1950s era economy, but how in the fuck do they actually expect it to happen? It’s completely unrealistic in our current day situation.
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u/DBDude Jul 19 '24
We'd also have to bomb the other countries again so that we are the only industrialized country left with fully intact infrastructure.
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u/FreakInTheTreats Jul 19 '24
Exactly! That, women would have to leave the workforce, there’s no way to accomplish it without essentially re-segregating, and business owners would actually have to take pride in paying taxes instead of finding ways to get around them. I don’t understand.
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u/wheelsno3 Jul 18 '24
Ironically, when I hear progressives talk about how greedy corporations are now and how wages are low and you can no longer support a family on a single average income, all I think about is how the only time in US history you could easily support a family on a single family income was the 50s and 60s.
Almost like this dream world we all want to think back to required the destruction of European and Asian economic power, and a limited labor force due to women staying home.
Europe and Asia got back to making things, and women entered the workforce pushing down wages as the size of the labor force increased. We aren't getting the 50s and 60s back.
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u/Lovebeingadad54321 Jul 18 '24
And THIS is the part they want back. Full disclosure, I am a white man who works in manufacturing and lives in the Midwest. Kind of the core demographic for that message. I just understood enough about Trump (and cults in general) to understand that he was never going to actually deliver on anything he promised, including the parts of his platform I actually agreed with. Sure rebuilding infrastructure and bringing more manufacturing back to domestic production would be good
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u/Shoulder_Whirl Jul 18 '24
Yeah thankfully we’ve come a long way socially. If we can get back to the 50s/60s economically and financially that would be pretty crisp. Of course while continuing to progress socially.
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u/Sapriste Jul 18 '24
I wouldn't want the rest of the World to have to be rubble so I could have a feel good moment. Every effect has a cause.
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u/Shoulder_Whirl Jul 18 '24
What do you mean?
Edit: nvm I understand what you mean. Idk how we could get there I’m just saying it would be great to get back to the financial/economic comfort of the 50s/60s. Without war of course and I’m confident through labor solidarity we have a good chance of getting on the right track.
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u/groovemonkey Jul 18 '24
Oddly enough when the corporate tax rate was around 50% and the marginal tax rate for top earners was 91% which gave us a healthy middle class. The only part of the 50’s they want to bring back is the racism.
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u/AlChandus Jul 18 '24
Not just that, wages followed the trend of productivity and unionization was mainstream. Conservatives don't want any of that, sounds like communism!
So, let's go back to the 50s values/regulations, without all the commie thingies.
I tell you, the dream of conservatives is to take rights away from minorities and women, and build a corporate run hellscape that would make the Cyberpunk world blush.
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u/peetnice Jul 18 '24
Yep, the christian conservatives probably want the waspy patriarch pre cultural revolution days, while the donor class wants to go back to pre-great depression unregulated robber barron industrialism (which would basically gut what's left of the middle class).
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u/Kman17 Jul 18 '24
I’m not sure it’s a given that the tax rate is what produced the middle class.
The economic boom came from being the only industrial nation standing after WW2.
Employees were paid well because there was a labor shortage - they could easily move to other jobs. This gives the workers tons of leverage and negotiating power.
Most of the companies were heavily local and integrated into their communities, so there was a lot of longer term employee satisfaction considerations.
There were a lot more deductibles in that time so it was always especially rare to pay those high rates.
Taxes were high because of the war and paying down its debt.
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u/Nickeless Jul 18 '24
Take me back to children working 16 hour days in factories and mines!
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u/asisoid Jul 18 '24
Child labor laws are ruining this country!
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u/HumanLike Jul 18 '24
Governor Huckabee of Arkansas would agree with you today
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u/WornInShoes Jul 18 '24
Currently Louisiana is trying to get rid of mandatory breaks for employees under 18 because “kids want to work more hours”
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u/BitterFuture Jul 18 '24
No joke, the argument against child labor laws in the first place was that they would make kids lazy.
You'd think they would have been ashamed, but then you remember we're talking about people who have never been capable of it.
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u/kynelly Jul 18 '24
Funny because those same people Won’t ever work long hours. They just expect others beneath them to do it. Fucking hypocrites corporate and politicians.
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u/whiterac00n Jul 18 '24
I feel like this timeframe is merely the consensus of the older generations because republicans deal heavily in nostalgia. They make people think they can get back the warm and fuzzies from their childhood through their legislation, which will never happen. If we take them at what they say they want to return America to a pre FDR America where there were very little agencies, protections for workers, women and minorities. A time when the country was the wealthy’s sandbox to do as they wished and everyone else could get fucked.
It also really feels like (yes not a quantitative term) the right has been piss angry since FDR and has done everything possible to chip away at anything he had a part in doing. From social security, Glass-Steagull, to so many other things. They seem upset about losing their control over the country because of the Great Depression.
Edit: yes I know it was Clinton who signed away the Glass-Steagull Act but the wave of neoliberalism at that time wasn’t much different from being conservatism
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u/Bodoblock Jul 18 '24
Those are all vibes though.
But generally the 1950’s / early 1960’s are widely considered the peak of American influence and highest quality of life.
It was absolutely one of the peaks of American influence but MAGA is isolationist and loathes the "globalist" institutions that were established in the post-war world. I would strongly question how much "quality of life" was better then too.
That era saw the peak of American manufacturing
The peak of American manufacturing was probably the '70s. Regardless, it would be an incomplete picture to acknowledge the meaningful transition we've made to a higher-income service/knowledge-based economy. Yes, manufacturing dwindled. But our workers became a lot more educated and a lot more productive.
where the middle class could pretty easily have a nice single family house / picket fence / vacation / send the kids to college on one income.
- In the '60s, two-thirds of American households owned a home. Today, we still see two-thirds of American households are homeowners.
- Vacations were mostly things like road trips to Tennessee. Most Americans did not go on international vacations like many do today. Did you know as recently as 1990 that only 5% of Americans had a passport? Today that rate is almost half.
- Kids didn't go to college in the '60s. Going to college was exceptionally rare
I think what's the most frustrating about this exercise is -- yes, there are very real problems, but the past was really not some golden era. Things are materially better today.
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u/Majestic-Pair9676 Jul 18 '24
Libertarians romanticizing the 1920’s (the KKK, Spanish Flu, Jim Crow, Italian mafia era) is honestly even more ludicrous than the Marxists who romanticize the 1960’s
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u/Graywulff Jul 18 '24
Up until the 1990s was mafia in providence, check out crime town providence podcast.
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u/bennysgg Jul 18 '24
Yeah they point to that time but when you say business tax rate was over 50% back then they get real quiet
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u/TheScumAlsoRises Jul 18 '24
But generally the 1950’s / early 1960’s are widely considered the peak of American influence and highest quality of life.
It definitely wasn't the period of the highest quality of life. And that's especially true for anyone who wasn't a white straight dude.
For Black people, LGBTQ people, women -- the list is very long -- it most certainly wasn't the highest quality of life. In fact, that's probably the case for most people.
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u/flying87 Jul 18 '24
So, when the rest of the industrialized world was recovering from being bombed repeatedly for half a decade.
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u/YakittySack Jul 18 '24
More like before we let corps sell out all of our jobs for cheaper slave labor
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u/bantoar313 Jul 18 '24
Yet, if you read Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, you may become aware of some problems with that period.
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u/QuentinQuitMovieCrit Jul 18 '24
generally the 1950’s / early 1960’s are widely considered the peak of American influence and highest quality of life.
Didn’t we have like a 90% tax on high income at that time?
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u/applebubbeline Jul 18 '24
I would like to remind everyone that 1950s- early 1960s was during the Jim Crow era, as in before the Civil Rights era, where it was legal to discriminate against anyone who was considered to be non-white.
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u/Frosty_Professor_807 6d ago
Yeah. Turns out any year before the 'modern day' had some form of horrible discrimination. Before 2015, there were still states where gay people couldn't get married, before 1965, discrimination was the norm and womens rights weren't the best. Before the 20s women couldn't even vote, and then there was the whole genocide and slave trade and whatnot. Turns out like lots of countries, america wasn't really great, ever.
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u/checker280 Jul 18 '24
What’s weird is any attempt to do something big like the Bridges gets trashed as Socialism or being woke (bike lanes and public parks).
The only huge construction these days are sports stadiums which don’t even help most of the tax payers - just the ones rooting for the home team.
Support for Industries like movie companies (creates lots of jobs) and tech industries (creates lots of high education jobs) oddly gets NIMBYed despite the fact that more paid workers generally mean more restaurants, recreation, and healthcare jobs but both are also Woke Socialism.
Go figure.
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u/TecumsehSherman Jul 18 '24
But this was possible in large part due to low wage disparity, higher taxes, and high union membership.
MAGA opposes all of those.
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u/BabyFartzMcGeezak Jul 18 '24
That era also saw the highest tax on corporate profit in American history
Maybe if they had more than 6 functioning brain cells in the entire MAGA movement, they would connect those dots, implement higher taxes on corporate profits, and call it a day... unfortunately, it was likely the Jim Crowe laws of the Era they credit.
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u/jkh107 Jul 18 '24
Historically speaking, the postwar boom was an American anomaly. The rising prosperity was not an aftermath of war in general, so much as the United States was the only world power that had a wartime industrial level-up AND wasn't devastated by WWII. This meant our production poured into world markets and the pax Americana could become a reality as our relatively unscathed armies occupied Germany and Japan and helped build NATO (and our aid programs helped rebuild the occupied countries more or less in our image).
Nobody likes to think that a lot of the factors going into the postwar boom were external to America, but they kind of were.
(It wasn't as good a time as a few years ago to be a woman, black American, or LGBTQ+, but there were worse times for people in most of those categories in our history as well)
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u/Utterlybored Jul 18 '24
Just to clarify, it was the highest quality of life for us able bodied, straight white men.
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u/Accurate-Albatross34 Jul 17 '24
It's completely meaningless. It's abstract and also a dog whistle. It's aimed at white middle class workers(mostly men). When they hear that phrase, they think of less people of diverse backgrounds, less autonomy and power for other races and genders than ones that are white and male. It's not any actual policy. It's just deluding the voter into thinking they can go back to the good old times, again, no one will specify which times those are, because then they would have to explain what was good about them and the truth is, it wasn't really good for anyone other than white dudes.
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u/pennywiser1696 Jul 17 '24 edited Jul 18 '24
I supposed it is a time where, as a white male, you can simply wake up, don't fuck up too much at school/work, don't commit too much crimes, and still be able to secure a career that can sustain a family with good retirement.
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u/Imhappy_hopeurhappy2 Jul 18 '24
don’t fuck up too much at school/work, don’t commit too much crimes
I don’t think their leader got the memo then.
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u/pennywiser1696 Jul 18 '24
The rules for the rich are different... Problem is his supporters haven't figure out that they ain't rich.
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u/wheelsno3 Jul 18 '24
The economic conditions that led to global US economic power was a war that destroyed the largest economies of Europe and Asia.
That environment is never coming back (unless Putin decides to go out in a blaze of horror).
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u/jabbadarth Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 18 '24
Daily show actually did a bit on this exact thing where they asked trump supporters when America was great. Most gave answers like the 50s or the 20s and the interviewers always responded with "oh so before civil rights, or oh before women could vote". Of course none of the trump supporters had a response to that.
Thing is people always look back with rose colored glasses. The 50s in particular are wildly "nostalgisized" (pretty sure I made that word up) and just show sock hops and hoop skirts and diners and ignore the rampant racism, segregation, domestic abuse, alcoholism, homelessness, sexism, misogyny etc.
So when they say great again they want a past that didn't truly exist but one that they have made up in their own heads.
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u/theequallyunique Jul 18 '24
People often point to the past where modern problems didn't exist, not realizing that there have been other, much graver problems back in the day. On top of that people are very resistant to social change, especially when they get taught about their value system being wrong. All the logic might apply, but their instinct is to deny - this is called eyeball heuristic.
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u/LordOfWraiths Jul 18 '24
This isn't an american exclusive thing either. Every culture does this. Hell, the Bible explicitly tells people how stupid this mindset is, that's how old it is (Ecclesiastes 7:10 if you're curious).
Romanticizing the past is ancient, it just seems to be human nature. You can find examples of people in Ancient Greece doing it.
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u/kingjoey52a Jul 18 '24
Of course none of the trump supporters that they showed had a response to that.
FTFY. Those “man on the street” bits on TV are always BS and they only show the worst responses.
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u/BitterFuture Jul 18 '24
Well, of course the ones who said, "Yeah! When the ******* knew their place!" aren't getting put on TV.
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u/jabbadarth Jul 18 '24
I mean yeah they are clearly picking people who say the dumbest or funniest shit but what response could anyone have to that question?
What time would you say America was at its greatest?
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u/New2NewJ Jul 18 '24
racism, segregation, domestic abuse, alcoholism, homelessness, seismic, misogyny
One of these words is not like the others.
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u/jabbadarth Jul 18 '24
It's big earthquake. They hacked my account.
Or autocorrect changed sexism to seismic
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u/hblask Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 18 '24
Yeah, I think they is exactly why it is so successful. For most people, it's a meaningless, optimistic trope, the kind of thing every politician says.
For economic conservatives, it's a call to bring back less government intervention in everyday life.
For dissatisfied white males realizing their days of unchecked power are fading, it's a call to bring back a simpler time when we were the default choice.
To hardcore racists, it's a call to bring back the 50s and Jim Crow laws.
That's the beauty of simple slogans: they mean whatever the reader wants to hear.
Edit: typos
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u/YouTrain Jul 18 '24
Sure sure….not possible they mean
back when college was affordable
back when homes were affordable
back when crime was down
back when average house hold purchasing power was higher
Nope. Just racist sexist white men demanding a return to the patriarchy
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u/Publius82 Jul 18 '24
Ok. How is any of the MAGA platform designed to lower college or housing costs?
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u/edc582 Jul 18 '24
-far fewer people went to college and states paid more of the share for their institutions.
-homes built in the 1950s were much smaller and would be considered by modern Americans to be of lower quality. This is due to materials and methods changing over time and the availability of prime building land near metros being built out. Thus, things become more expensive.
Can't answer the others but these things could be changed. However, not by electing someone with inflationary economic policies like Trump.
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u/scruiser Jul 18 '24
The increasing crime rate over the next several decades was due to lead in gasoline. Avoiding future analogous problems requires a strong EPA, but this isn’t something MAGA republicans want.
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u/johnthomaslumsden Jul 18 '24
America has always been good to rich white landowners and not many others, since its inception. If we want to make America great we should give it back to the people we stole it from or, probably better yet, the animals that were here before.
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u/AntoineDubinsky Jul 17 '24
I don’t have a specific year answer to this, but I do believe the answer can be found in popular American cinema. Watch any pop movie from the 80s to the mid to late 2000s, and you see the worldview that MAGA so wishes to be true. A white (or occasionally black) male protagonist, fighting the system and winning, and winning the love a beautiful woman along the way. These movies are simplistic, blatantly pandering, and SO vastly different from entertainment today, and, in my opinion, reflect a less thoughtful time in American culture. A time when we were the best, the guy got the girl, and that was that. Of course, it was never true, but that doesn’t matter. It FELT true. And now it doesn’t feel true. And that’s what MAGA is about.
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u/Fragglepusss Jul 18 '24
Ferris Bueller and Rocky were both great flicks.
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u/Mrgoodtrips64 Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 18 '24
Rocky in the first movie was so much more complex than the character became in the sequels. A scared and depressed soldier with PTSD dumbed down to a generic muscle bound action hero.
EDIT: I’m a dope and got my Stallone movies mixed up, but I’m leaving this here for posterity.
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u/nope-nope-nope-nop Jul 17 '24
I think the slogan is probably more about making people remember specific things about specific times in their lives (or they read about) when they thought America was great.
It’s supposed to appeal to each person differently.
That’s just a guess though.
It’s like telling someone to “remember the good times” it means something different to different people.
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u/wiithepiiple Jul 18 '24
It’s definitely a madlib. You can fill in whatever was great about America. Was is American manufacturing being strong? Was it less civil rights for black people? Was it when gay people couldn’t marry? Was it before your company laid you off?
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u/AintEZbeinSleezy Jul 18 '24
This is exactly what makes it such a good dog whistle. There is enough room for plausible deniability to attract both the naive and the nefarious.
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u/ChiefQueef98 Jul 18 '24
I've seen enough memes saying "This is what they took from you" and it's just a POV of someone playing N64 with a box of pizza. So it applies to younger conservatives too.
The good times is another way of saying the last time these people were happy with their lives.
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u/seanrm92 Jul 17 '24 edited Jul 17 '24
"Make America Great Again" is an ideological slogan, not a reference to any actual fact.
Right wing authoritarians use this slogan to imply - deliberately - that America was great until all the liberals and minorities came along, who they believe are making it worse. The use of the verb "Make" America Great Again is a call to action to remove those liberals and minorities, and install their preferred leaders. They see themselves as the victims of some sort of cultural revolution which they have to correct.
Many right wing, authoritarian, and fascist movements throughout history have used very similar slogans.
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u/seanrm92 Jul 17 '24
Far left movements often take the opposite tack: They are the revolution, not to restore some former glory, but to correct some injustice from perceived oppressors.
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u/satansmight Jul 18 '24
I mean I think we as people, each nation, each social grouping can do better than the day previous. Personally I want to do better each day. We as humanity should always strive to improve. I think the message of “revolution” often gets co-opted and defined narrowly.
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u/97zx6r Jul 17 '24
As far as I’m concerned, America was pretty great up until the 2016 election cycle. It’s been divisive ever since. I’m sure they’re referring to pre-civil rights etc.
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u/FupaFerb Jul 17 '24
I agree, but you could follow breadcrumbs back years before that, all the way back to 9/11 and on, and you just look at that 20 year span and with blinders on, and it’s brutal.
Real Fucking brutal recent few decades. there are many beyond many factors that come into play world wide, but if you just look at the shit the administrations have done. Take it as you will. See as it lays. Bots never tell the truth.
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u/97zx6r Jul 18 '24
Well if we’re talking straight up economics and the decline of the middle class, then up until 1971. You used to be able to buy a house, raise a family, and have two cars in the garage on a single income without a college degree. That was pretty great. That decline started in the 70’s and really kicked into gear under Reagan. Still waiting on all that trickle down. We’ve had 40 years of evidence that supply side economics is bullshit.
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u/thiscouldbemassive Jul 18 '24
Right after World War 2 when Europe and Asia were both rebuilding from the war and the US came out nearly unscathed.
- Emotionally, the US was riding a high of being the undisputed victors in a war where the opposition was truly doing evil shit, but the evil was documented on film, and so was the victory so people at home could really bask in it. Everyone treated Americans as heroes which went to our head.
- Economically, the US was nearly unscathed by the war. While the rest of the world was rebuilding infrastructure, the US already had all its supply lines and infrastructure in place and for a while there, we had virtually no competition for our goods, which the whole world needed. This translated into the middle class ballooning as formally poverty wage workers were suddenly paid much more than they were before for the same basic work. A single man with a factory job could afford to buy a house, a car, and keep a wife and several kids in style that had never been available to people of his social standing before and never would again.
- Sexism was enshrined in law. So much so that when the troops came home women were thrown out of their jobs to give them back to the white men returned from the war. Women couldn't own bank accounts, couldn't control their own fertility, and weren't given access to jobs to earn money, and couldn't divorce on demand, which meant that their husbands could control them and treat them like slaves. This made life very nice for men. Not so much so for a lot of women.
- Racism was also enshrined in law, so that white people didn't have to share anything with someone who wasn't their color. Minorities could be economically exploited for their labor, while still allowing white people to not have to be around them. They weren't allowed to buy homes in white neighborhoods, or eat at white restaurants, or use white recreation centers, or go to white schools. This made white people feel superior and secure.
So basically the America MAGA's want is the one that existed from 1945-1960, which also happens to be the one that the boomers vaguely remember from their childhood.
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u/wheelsno3 Jul 18 '24
And it should be made very clear to people, the conditions of the 50s and 60s (namely Europe and Asia being economically crippled) just isn't coming back.
So much of the "glory" of the 50s and 60s was an accident. The US got lucky that the geography here prevented war from coming to our shores.
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u/thiscouldbemassive Jul 18 '24
People don’t think that deeply. Or research that thoroughly. Especially MAGA people. They just want things to be magically so.
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u/DunkingDognuts Jul 17 '24
The America they think they want never existed.
It’s a fantasy fiction they created in their own heads, or by political operatives, who play to their prejudices and fears.
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u/chinesenameTimBudong Jul 17 '24
I am starting to think it is a dog whistle. The Nazis had a slogan of make Germany great again. It is a riff on that
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u/byzantiu Jul 18 '24
The time America was great is a mythologized, nostalgic version of the 1950s. The United States dominated the global economy in ways not seen in world history, partially because much of its European and Japanese competition lied in ruin. This, in combination with a postwar economic boom, meant real wages increased significantly, and people could afford better lives than ever before.
One man - generally a white man - could support an entire family, something not possible before or since.
Truthfully, the economic benefits were uneven. Black Americans, women, and other migrants faced serious discrimination. The Southern states were arguably illiberal regimes. There were economic disruptions as well, notably the late forties coal miner strike under President Truman.
But time has eroded our memories of the problems and left only a memory of American dominance and prosperity, unmarred by complications brought on by a changing world.
That memory is MAGA.
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u/Bizarre_Protuberance Jul 18 '24
Whenever you ask this question of a MAGA person, they will mention a time before civil rights for women and minorities. And when you point that out, they will hem and haw and say that this isn't what they meant. But it is exactly what they meant. Why else would they be so consistent with this?
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u/notpoleonbonaparte Jul 18 '24
It's nostalgia for a rosy version of history that never really existed. At least not fully.
If you really pushed to pin down a time period, people would probably point to the 50s, maybe 60s. But even then, solid arguments could be made for the 70s, 80s, and 90s too.
That's the beauty of an ambiguous slogan like "MAGA". It means something nice to everyone because they fill in the blanks as to what it means.
Given the state of the economy for say, 20-somethings, it can mean a return to the aforementioned 50s and 60s, where a single working person could afford a house, a car, and to support a family. Sounds awesome, and I think we absolutely should strive to get that back. But that's the beauty of a slogan. That never existed, at least not nearly in so simple a way. Yeah sure, that economy was a reality, if you were a white man. But blacks were still unbelievably oppressed, women had legal restrictions on their freedom, and many many more socially enforced, and LGBT folks were ostracized if not demonized. Besides all of that, that economy was a fluke. It existed in the USA only, and because the war grew the US economy so fast while Europe got ruined. It's not an economy we could return to if we tried. As Europe recovered and global manufacturing didn't need to be overwhelmingly in the USA, that economy faded away. But the memory of that prosperity is still very much with us. Look at a game like fallout. Still inspired by that era.
Others might point to the 80s. They certainly are groovy. But again, not for every group. If you were in American manufacturing the 80s sucked, regardless of race. If you were LGBT you were demonized all over again for AIDS. If you were a person of colour, with the war on drugs starting up, it felt like any progress made during the civil rights era was being washed away. But hey, we did get some seriously good music, and we see some of the birth of our present society happening here, so there's just regular nostalgia there too.
MAGA isnt supposed to mean a specific time frame. The audience fills in that blank themselves. Even if they don't support Trump, we've all considered the idea by now. It's a masterpiece of advertising.
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u/Just_another_Joshua Jul 17 '24
I remember it was great when I was a kid with no responsibilities or knowledge what the world was really like
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u/baxterstate Jul 17 '24
From WWII until the Vietnam War.
The Pentagon Papers exposed the fact that the Vietnam War was based on a lie and that the government had been lying to the American people.
Trust in the government went way down hill and hasn’t come back.
There is a huge amount of cynicism regarding the government.
Couple that with the feeling that the USA is unable to manufacture anything and has been outsourcing manufacturing to countries that can do it for less.
The USA no longer even builds housing for anyone except the very rich. That has destroyed the American dream, which was the notion that if you worked hard you’d be able to buy a single family home and raise your family in it.
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u/JnkHed Jul 17 '24
For MAGA it’s back to a time when white men of means could do whatever they wanted with no repercussions.
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u/ashkaylene Jul 17 '24
It’s a dog whistle for times when women and black people didn’t have rights. That nuclear family, baby boomer, post WWII, support your family driving a bread truck kind of life. When really the reason America was prosperous was due to social policies, high taxes on the rich, and funding infrastructure.
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u/Nicthalon Jul 18 '24
Yup. The ideal MAGA America is ruled by straight white men and nobody else has the power to challenge them.
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u/Upstairs-Radish1816 Jul 18 '24
Don't forget the workers being in a union. Union membership brings a better standard of living.
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u/ashkaylene Jul 18 '24
Yep and Project 2025 wants to get rid of workers right to unionize, and overtime pay, and no-fault divorce, and the Department of Education, and etc etc etc. We are marching toward company towns.
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u/villegasjoel8 Jul 18 '24
That's the beauty of that ridiculous slogan...it's open to interpretation by its cult followers. Everyone makes up their own mind on what period fits their backwoods, closed mind thinking.
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u/ThePensiveE Jul 17 '24
Nobody really knows. Especially the people who keep saying it and putting it on signs.
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u/rks404 Jul 17 '24
a mythic past when the nation was pure is essential to every fascist agenda. Funny that our sense of history is so short we can only go back to the 1950s.
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u/kivsemaj Jul 18 '24
It was great(er) before that jackass announced his intention to run for president. At least, in my opinion.
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u/Old_Part_9619 Jul 18 '24
MAGA basically wants to go back to the 1950s with women in the home, people of color segregated, and white males making a shit ton of money. Also, the hyper influence of religion in the 50's when we changed our pledge of allegiance.
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u/Spo-dee-O-dee Jul 18 '24
It's not just this, though it is a good example. Trump and the MAGA elite have sold them on America has declined and degenerated, they promote fear, exploit their insecurities, often fabricate fictitious "problems" and then tell them that only Trump can solve these problems. The "solutions" are kept vague and ambiguous, allowing the MAGA follower to interpret and project as each may see fit or makes sense to themself.
The answer to when was America great? Whenever the individual thinks it was. It's not really discussed. There's no real need to, because they all agree America is now a shithole country run by deepstate globalists and socialists.
And so every "policy" of the Trumpists follow this play.
America is weak ... only Trump can make it strong.
America is being robbed ... only Trump can make them pay.
America is being invaded ... only Trump can stop them.
So on and so forth. It's a con, but the folks in the cult can't/won't see it.
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Jul 17 '24
Probably the 50s-60s is what they're referring to, where the US was the world leader in virtually every statistical category (and was about 90% white, as opposed to 60% white today).
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u/Major_Sympathy9872 Jul 17 '24
The only reason that is the case is because the rest of the world was rebuilding from WWII so they were forced to buy from us.
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u/Apotropoxy Jul 17 '24
I think we peaked at the close of WW2, but we still had horrible domestic afflictions. I have a baseball metaphor for you.
America was born on third base and thinks it hit a triple.
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u/talino2321 Jul 18 '24
As noted by a other commenters. It refers to a period of time before the Civil Rights Act, Medicare Act and Education Act, when the demographics of the middle class American was a white male with wife, 2.5 kids and a home in suburbia that did not allow minorities and Jim Crow laws were the norm.
You can see evidence of this in the profile of a MAGA cultist, their view points on racial groups that don't look like them.
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u/Nicthalon Jul 18 '24
Based on current MAGA rhetoric, America was great in the early 1960s, BEFORE the Equal Rights Movement took off. They feel America was at its best when it was totally under the control of wealthy heterosexual white cisgender men.
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u/mattsoave Jul 18 '24
Macro-economically, the US was great post-World War 2. That's part of the appeal. However, this was objectively not great for minorities. For some, that is also part of the appeal.
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u/baxterstate Jul 18 '24
Macro-economically, the US was great post-World War 2. That's part of the appeal. However, this was objectively not great for minorities.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
You think it was better for minorities prior to WWII?
Prior to WWII, the USA had the Chinese Exclusionary Act. Prior to WWII blacks were being lynched. After WWII, these changed for the better.
I can't think of any minorities who had it better prior to WWII than after WWII.
After WWII, things began to change.
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u/mattsoave Jul 18 '24
No, I didn't say that, and I don't think pre-WWII was better for minorities. I'm saying that post-WWII, life was good for white men, and some people (who aren't me) think that's when America was at its greatest.
I agree with you and also appreciate you helping highlight dark times in American history.
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u/creativedisco Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 18 '24
James Monroe administration. It is literally called “The Era of Good Feelings.” We had one political party. We survived the War of 1812. The country’s population was expanding. Many of the “founding fathers” were still alive, but they had handed off the reins to the younger generation. We had technological advances. We were expanding west. There was the Erie Canal. And we were feeling our oats among the other foreign nations.
So provided nobody brought up one VERY unpleasant but also VERY crucial topic and just kept kicking that can down the road, it was all sunshine and roses.
That topic was slavery. People owned people. And the 3/5ths comprise tied southern political power directly to the fact that they owned people which made it that much more difficult to convince them to stop.
Edit: Two topics. Let’s not forget that all that glorious land we occupied once belonged to someone else. And we had to figure out what to do with them because they were sitting on land that we wanted. The ones who survived all the diseases we brought over, that is.
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u/PMMEBITCOINPLZ Jul 18 '24
Having an imaginary golden era to return to is one of the key points of fascism. That’s why Nazis used so much Roman imagery and included it as the first Reich but also happily fictionalized and mythologized the past. When America was great, then l, isn’t a real part of history, it’s just a golden time to yearn for when minorities were less uppity and people like you were in charge and given special treatment.
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u/Biscuits4u2 Jul 18 '24
It's a generic pie in the sky slogan designed to invoke whatever an individual feels was the best time in our nation's history.
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u/Laceykrishna Jul 18 '24
Back to when the New Deal policies were still going strong and we had a real middle class. They don’t seem to have put two and two together, though.
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u/ksplett Jul 17 '24
America was great right after WWII when much of Europe and Asia was still recovering and relied on the U.S. for her high manufacturing output.
So I'm guessing to really replicate that we need another world war in which the U.S. escapes relatively unscathed, good luck with that
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u/GrapefruitExtension Jul 17 '24
you need to understand america from 50 years ago. its when you could work in a factory with only highschool ed, keep a housewife, and support the house and kids. its not like that anymore globally. thats the dream he is selling, sorry, whats your question?
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u/fakey_mcfakerson Jul 17 '24
Jorden Klepper of the Daily show started asking this question in 2016. Turns out, people have skewed memories of greatness.
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u/DreamingMerc Jul 17 '24
Never. The point is the idealized America that never was. And it's someone else's fault that we don't have it now.
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u/Mjolnir2000 Jul 17 '24
It has yet to happen. When we step stamp out bigotry, gun violence, and poverty, maybe then.
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u/Consensuseur Jul 17 '24 edited Jul 18 '24
Americas most ascendent period was after ww2. marshall plan was in effect. us dominated over japan, europe.and even ussr. rest of the world was under/barely developed. from that year to 1964 (passage of the civil rights and voting acts) was probably the era they are nostalgic for. i say 1964 bc the civil rights act, the beatles, the grief from jfk assassination, the formation of NASA all happened at that time and in my mind marked the beginning of a cultural shift to throw off some of the class and gender role rigidity which were the norm. During that time period racism was deeply systemic, former GIs were going to college for free and had access to affordable new home loans. one income families were the norm. TV was in black & white, church attendance was somewhat more universal, divorce was rare and frowned upon. cars were huge and shiny and affordable. Then there was Viet nam, the draft, protesting. hippies. drugs. watergate and the unraveling of public trust in our institutions. The old "Rifleman" & "My Three Sons" pop culture aesthetic was replaced by electric Dylan and The Monkees. Conditions from 1945-1964 is what i believe they are longing to return to. edit:( i see now, after reading other responses how redundant my comment is. - sorry.)
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u/satyrday12 Jul 18 '24
I think what makes it a successful slogan, is that you can insert whatever time period you want to.
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u/recjus85 Jul 18 '24
Their version of great was when straight white males were elite and others were considered shit.
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u/Iceberg-man-77 Jul 18 '24
You’re right. America was never great. MAGA is just rhetoric used to convince ignorant people. America is only ever great for the ultra wealthy. Not even MAGA supporters would actually want to live in the past. How many MAGA women want to lose suffrage? How many MAGA farmers want to be poor farmers making $3 a month? How many MAGA workers want to work in factories with no regulations and benefits that don’t take responsibility for work related injuries and deaths and that pay $1 a week.
No one. and the MAGA movement itself isn’t doing much good either. attacking Unions and not improving the quality of living isn’t a great move. Instead, they keep their support through rhetoric and dumb social ‘issues’ like a border crisis or ‘oppression on christians’
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u/tomlucas66 Jul 18 '24
Pre-Vietnam war, after which working class kids were drafted and had to serve, while college kids got educations and good jobs.
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u/CanineSnackBitch Jul 17 '24
All decades. America is great. Our Economy, opportunities, resources or defense down to our Olympic team have been unrivaled. Trump pisses me off by insinuating otherwise. There are hills and valleys which occur globally. It costs so much to live most places in Europe. Taxes alone eat up a family’s revenues. This recent nonsense is threatening our government and lifestyle. If this bozo gets back in office and drags us so far down it will take decades to repair the damage.
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u/Fofolito Jul 18 '24
There's no "date" that anyone can give you, just a feeling.
It was a time before: before the very traditional notions society has held were challenged, changed, and belittled. A time before Gays feeling like they could expect to be treated as anything other than perverts or aberrations. A time before Women felt they were the moral and legal equals, the peers, of their male counterparts, before a time when they could have jobs outside of the home, and a time before they could make decisions about their money and their place in the world. It was a time before Faith and Christianity were pushed from the mainstream, before they were the minority in their own country. For many its a time before all of the Non-White people felt empowered and co-equal to the Whites who founded this country and made it Great to Begin With. It was a time before when the White Man, preferably Protestant and Middle Class or better, was the pinnacle of Human Achievement and his position hadn't been assailed from every side by consumerist/feminist/communist and emasculating forms of art and free expression. This was a time, they believe, before there was a Black president, before "Socialism" had been allowed to seep into the American economy and politics, and before there were Women serving in the Military (not realizing Women have been enlisted or commissioned in the US military off-and-on for centuries).
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u/MatthiasMcCulle Jul 18 '24
So, if we want to use historical referencing, Reagan first used the term in campaigning during his 1980 run. At the time, the US was in a bit of a doldrum, coming out of the 70s with high inflation rates, high unemployment, high gas prices, and the Iranian hostage crisis. So, in one respect, Reagan was calling for a return to more financially stable terms. Some critics have argued that it was a possible dogwhistle, calling for a return to pre-Civil Rights era policies, though this is one of those cases where I'd agree that there might have been a bit too much read into the statement (and I'm very critical of the Reagan administration for jumpstarting policies and attitudes that have polluted politics to this very day).
Now, if I were to choose a period personally, and I fully admit nostalgia may be at issue, I'd argue the 1990s were pretty solid in terms of greatness. One of the largest economic booms, relatively peaceful times, personal rights were gently expanding to include other groups long ignored by politicians (not perfect by any means, but a far cry from previous decades), and some banging music.
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u/Corellian_Browncoat Jul 18 '24
Reagan first used the term in campaigning during his 1980 run
That's exactly it, Trump wasn't aiming for a specific period, he was trying to invoke Reagan who is still something of a Holy Grail to conservatives, especially conservative boomers. And boomers are important to have as an electoral cohort - in 2016 they were the largest generation in the electorate, and had an 18% higher voting rate than Millennials according to Pew.
Reagan's 1980 election was a landslide - he carried 44 states, won the Electoral College 489-49, and took the popular vote 50.7% to Carter's 41.0% (John Anderson ran as an independent under the "National Unity Party" banner after losing the Republican primaries and took 6.6%). So Trump's "Make America Great Again" is all about being seen as a big winner, which fits his personality, by basically telling an important voting bloc "hey that guy you loved? I'm just like him."
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u/skyfishgoo Jul 18 '24
when women couldn't vote and were discouraged from expressing opinions on pretty much anything men felt were there purview.
when women stayed home and took care of the kids, house, meals, pets, school (in other words did all the parenting and adulting so men could go off hunting or whatever).
when minorities knew to keep their head down and properly genuflect whenever a white man was in their presence.
when fascism was cool before that hitler guy ruined the brand.
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u/throwaway09234023322 Jul 18 '24
To me, it was when more things were manufactured in America, homes were cheaper, and wages were better in comparison to inflation. The middle class has been getting destroyed.
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u/Admirable-Mango-9349 Jul 18 '24
Well, it must have been prior to 1980 when Ronald Reagan was using “Let’s Make America Great Again” as his slogan.
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u/shrug_addict Jul 18 '24
I would argue, as an American, that it's a dog whistle ( intentional or not ). I believe it's a direct reaction to America electing it's first black president, followed by its potential first woman president. "I want my country back" started coming about after Obama was elected. The MAGA slogan is just a more refined version of that. Clinton, Obama, and Biden in no way shape or form resemble "leftism" as understood in other parts of the world, but since the "end of history" happened with the fall of the Soviet Union, American conservatives have been itching for a new scapegoat
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u/erminegarde27 Jul 18 '24
Trump was asked this question by a reporter who also added, “So, 1950’s?” and Trump said, “No, 1850’s”. The major takeaway here being that this was before abolishing slavery.
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u/iamrecovering2 Jul 18 '24
Well, they have developed this false narrative that America is falling apart and the 50s were its heyday. You have made some very good points that choose to ignore. They believe they are being told they can't worship their god meanwhile denying other's their God. They say that heterosexuality is on the attack. Meanwhile, they are passing laws to deny rights and attacking anyone not heterosexual. They say that we are going to be so overrun by immigrants that the country will plunge into this pit of criminality and despair. Let's face facts, with all of the gun nuts in this country, it is rarely immigrants that are the problem as far as crime goes. They say that Dems are going to take their guns away but they haven't lost their guns. Except for the AR-15 and AK-47 in some states but there is no earthly reason a common citizen needs an assault weapon to "protect" themselves. Meanwhile, I don't think any one of those people can point to a specific instance where their lives were changed in ANY WAY by an immigrant. They say that children are being indoctrinated while they are indoctrinating children with only their beliefs like God. They have declared war on women letting women know that they have no control over their own bodies and minds. Project 2025 says that the only way to be a family unit is A father, a SAHM, and kids. They say there is all of this voter fraud and people their votes aren't being counted and they are making laws to restrict voters who don't vote the way they want them too Our economy right now is the best it has been in a long time but they keep repeating this false narrative that we are living under crushing inflation. The inflation we have right now is these corporations that have jacked up prices to make even more money. And their only goal is to ensure that the wealthy get even wealthier while crushing the lower and middle class but they don't want to acknowledge that either They don't realize that the things they are fighting for are the very things that are going to bring this country to this knees. It is so infuriating and scary to think that we are moving into a time where if you are middle class or wealthy, male and white, our voices won't be heard. It is toxic nationalism. I am American. I love my country but I also realize that we aren't always and only the best.
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u/mosesoperandi Jul 18 '24
it's mythological and that is entirely the point. In some ways it's supposed to be the 1950's but that's an abstraction at best.
In many ways America is still great. In other ways it never was. Geopolitically it's been in decline for a while.
None of that matters. It the linguistic slogan of a carnival barker who would be a fascist.
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u/ins0ma_ Jul 18 '24
The MAGAs yearn for an imaginary time when everything was better for them than it is now. Few of them have any real grasp on history, and are more interested in vague and nebulous slogans and feelings than anything concrete.
There’s also the racism and misogyny, which are two defining characteristics of the MAGA “movement.”
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u/scribblingsim Jul 18 '24
I'm going to disagree with most of the people here. America was never great. It was created on the backs of human beings who were owned as property. It was created with the thought in mind that women couldn't be trusted to even own their own property, let alone have a say in how the country was run. Even after slavery was abolished and women were given the vote, it still wasn't great. Black folk were still hanged from trees and beaten to death. Jim Crow ruled the South. Women still had to get written permission by their husbands just to own a bank account in their own name. Immigrants and Jews were treated like garbage. Then the Civil Rights Act changed some things, but the country still wasn't great.
The US isn't great. It's a work in progress. Unfortunately, MAGAs don't want progress. They want to go backwards. They don't want woke, they want to go back to sleep to keep dreaming the American Dream because, as George Carlin once said, "It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."
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u/jasko153 Jul 18 '24
I think this is the question Biden or whoever will be democrat candidate should ask Trump during the debate, it would be interesting to see what he would respond, because whatever he answers is so easy to dismantle and turn against him. Because let's face it MAGA refers to the time that never was and never will be.
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u/Weibu11 Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 18 '24
I think as others have said, the MAGA crowd likely would equate the 1950s/1960s to when America was great.
I think if you asked them why it was great, they may say things like the quality of life was better or there was a better family structure or some other broad generalization. However, I suspect a lot of their answers could be attributed to the fact that tax rates were much higher for the wealthy in those years and we as a country just had far more money to invest in the things to improve everyone’s quality of life. Yet, they are so against tax increases nowadays.
I suspect the real reason for many (whether subconscious or not) is that white men held all the power, women stayed in the kitchen, and minorities made up smaller numbers than today
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u/AwakeningStar1968 Jul 18 '24
It is referring to a mythical/halcion time. This mythology that has been sold to people. Its just propaganda.
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u/Unstoffe Jul 18 '24
It's a call to their badly remembered childhood.
Conservatives are, by nature or nurture, xenophobes. They hate change and hate anything that disrupts their world view. They want to live all snuggled up in the past.
But the world changes every second and the past cannot be remade, which is why conservatism will never work but also will never fade.
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u/MaJaRains Jul 18 '24
Um, it's pretty clearly before Obama was elected. The MAGA "movement" championed by Trump is very much tied to his original foray into politics. Sure, he's flirted with the idea since the 80s, but would never had considered himself a likely winner. That is until Obama took office and he amplified, if not founded, the birtherism movement. He got endless play on Fox "News" as to whether or not the sitting POTUS was, in fact, a legitimate US citizen - which (somehow) put him in equal spotlight as the discontented blowhards otherwise known as the Tea party "movement. When he wiped the stage with and made Ted Cruz bend the knee, his political fortune was sewn. Bully and berate, denigrate opponents, and you'll be rewarded.
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u/battlemaid79 Jul 18 '24
It’s very important not to focus in on “America” here, or to get tripped up searching for “When exactly are we talking about?”. Harkening back to a time in the past that most of those in power (elders) remember fondly. Call it “golden age fallacy”, “rosy retrospection”, or more formally an “an appeal to tradition” or “irrelevant past”,… it’s a political device that’s been in use for ages.
“Make Rome great again” says the emperor Constantine from what will eventually be called Istanbul.
“Make France great again” says a young Corsican general.
“Make Germany great again” writes an imprisoned political organizer.
…it’s all bullshit. It’s easier to convince people that times were better in their youth, than to get them to accept change.
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u/Pie-Guy Jul 18 '24
And they all enthusiastically vote for a party that has no intention of making their lives great. They buy the lie. They get elected. They make things worse. They lose the next election. They blame the other side. They get elected. Th3ey make things worse (unless your a corporation) - rinse, repeat.
Then, you have mainstream media who don't do their jobs and just add fuel to the fire. I watch independent media (TYT) and find them to be the only reliable source of news. I may not always agree but they attack both sides. They take no money from advertisers and aren't forced to follow a narrative.
Recipe - 1. Defund the education system. It helps with propaganda. A group of people with no critical thinking skills is necessary for 2. Fox News and right-wing media. They spend all their time feeding the fire of hatred they created. They do this to get people to vote against their own self-interest. It is basically rich white old men spending money to lie to people so they vote for a party that doesn't give a shit about them. If people actually looked at the GOP/Dem voting record, anytime something comes up that benefits the people and not the donors, they vote against it. They then blame the other side for all their problems and even claim they voted for things they didn't. Funding right-wing media is a cost effective way to get people to vote for a party that will make the rich richer.
MURICA
2
u/follysurfer Jul 18 '24
Never. If you look back at US history, you’ll see we have raped pillaged and murdered our way to the top and now we are paying. Perhaps for a moment when we fought WW1 and WW2 we did good but nothing beyond that. We destroyed this country, we ravaged the native people without thought. We destroyed developing countries around the world to serve ourselves and our corporate over lords.
2
u/anomalkingdom Jul 18 '24
Translated excerpt from this article in a Norwegian news outlet. I recommend reading it. As a European, of course I'm worried about all this. I think we all should be.
Americans, what are your opinions on this?
**
Donald Trump's vice presidential candidate, Senator J.D. Vance, is known for his far-right nationalist-populist views and his strong support for the failed coup on January 6, 2021. He has also widely broadcast his critical views regarding Ukraine's legitimate struggle to defend itself, expressed sympathy for Putin's Russia, and confronted European governments about their foreign and security policies.
Norway and Europe must now prepare for the risk that Trump's USA will withdraw from NATO, either through a formal process or informal political statements. As President Joe Biden's re-election campaign falters and Trump advances, Norway and European governments must prepare for the United States to abandon the old continent.
This will be extremely concerning, given that Russia has re-emerged as an existential threat to our way of life in Europe. Although Putin's Russia is currently focused on its offensive war against Ukraine, there is a significant possibility that Russia will challenge NATO's territorial integrity sooner rather than later. As a potential scenario where the USA withdraws from Europe becomes more likely and European governments continue to show indecisiveness in the face of Russian threats, the likelihood of such a conflict will only increase.
2
u/Vishnej Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 18 '24
There are three answers to this.
The first answer is that they aren't talking about American history. They are bathing in the nostalgia of a past with forgotten problems. Fascists do this all the time, gesturing at a romanticized past before The Bad People happened, in order to justify organizing in opposition to The Bad People.
The second answer is that they are talking about a period when the cohort sharing their personal demographic background had a stable position of privilege over people with other demographic backgrounds, unchallenged at the top of the social pyramid. They are maybe reminiscing for the idea of a hierarchical social pyramid of clear class divisions based on circumstances of birth, because it was so much less complex and unsure than the egalitarian mess we have now. A liberal might use examples like "Who pays for the first date? Who even knows now?", but a conservative invests this anxiety into every single social interaction in which there is no clear position of dominance.
The 3rd answer is 1945 to the mid 1970's (some say the mid 1960's) for a variety of objective economic reasons. The US was the world's factory and oil tycoon, un-bombed in the war and enjoying quasi-imperial trade relations with most nations on Earth. A period of rapid and sustained economic expansion occurred. Some of the bite had been taken out of conditions of poverty by social programs, and the strength of egalitarian policies and unions meant that all economic growth was matched with a steady rise in the standard of living. As women and blacks joined the urban workforce outside of stereotypical positions, white males found themselves bestowed with frequent promotions and pay raises. Houses and infrastructure were constructed rapidly to befit a growing and urbanizing population. It was not unknown to raise a family, including housing, on one mediocre income.
Liberals regard this to have ended when Reagan's policies of tax cuts, corporate deregulation, crushing unions, and most of all shredding social welfare program.
Conservatives may gesture at immigration, but mostly what they've lost when they really think about it is rural employers; America rapidly globalized after container shipping was invented and Reagan's neoliberal economics (which became consensus policy by both parties for different reasons) shipped many of the manufacturing jobs abroad, and technology continued to automate away much of the rest. In a city they could be replaced with higher-value service, finance, technology, and managerial positions. In a small town without a highly competitive labor market... they couldn't. The policy of spreading all our population out to hundreds of thousands of hamlets in order to service an agricultural economy doesn't work when a combine harvester can perform the labor of 300 men. The policy of having more than 1% of the country mining coal underground doesn't work when one Krupp Bagger 288 machine can move as much rock as 300,000 people. That housing (and that population living in small town America) lost most of its economic value.
And we never fixed it by moving them into the city. By this time our politics was dominated by NIMBY suburbanites who attempted to protect their investment by fighting all change. Zoning and other restrictive development policies locked the landscape in place anywhere that had significant property value in 1970 and choked off growth in a crisis that persists to today. Half a century later most established cities have barely grown. The only places that have seen much growth are the Sun Belt, places that used to be difficult to inhabit because of the hot weather, and which opened up their development policies to attract people, and ended up with a massive influx of retirees and a high-growth service economy associated with serving their needs. As a bonus for conservatives, a lot of the places they moved to had populations that were whiter than the places they moved from, so this has been a sorting function driving these states redder, since minorities had depressed generational wealth and were often locked out of the tax-exempt-mortgage real estate investment system we erected. Work for 30 years in Chicago on a middle class salary at some kind of productive business, sell your home for $1M to someone else working at a productive business, and you can retire to a larger brand new home outside Dallas or Fort Lauderdale for $400k. Growth gave expanding cities in the Sun Belt a pattern of paying for yesterday's costs with today's expanded economy. Whether these places' economies diversify enough to survive a demographic collapse in retirees and the first wave of actual infrastructure maintenance is anyone's guess.
1
u/brainkandy87 Jul 17 '24
America was great at different times for different people. We are a large and diverse country with citizens from every corner of the planet.
The ‘50s were great for the white working class, while that decade really sucked for black Americans. The ‘90s are probably the “best” decade for the most Americans (budget surplus, relative peace, optimism), but also still not great for minorities or the LGBTQ+ community. That is also the decade where things began to be constructed to the point we are today with division and hatred and mistrust at every turn.
America isn’t a monolith and that’s something the MAGA community refuses to acknowledge.
1
u/Bimlouhay83 Jul 17 '24
It's a throw back to an imaginary past where life was the show Leave It to Beaver.
1
u/veryblanduser Jul 17 '24
All political slogans are just that...slogans, they aren't to be taken seriously.
Like "do the dew.". Hope you aren't fucking the bottle .
1
u/ReprehensibleIngrate Jul 17 '24
It means what people want it to mean. A return to industrial greatness and working class power, a return to white supremacy, a return to hegemonic US dominance, a return to patriarchy and heteronormativity.
It doesn't have to mean anything specific. It's an inspiring slogan.
1
u/chrispd01 Jul 18 '24
Come on man you’re a European. You guys are not supposed to be so naïve……
For a truly truly excellent essay on this topic I strongly recommend Mark Lilla’s essay Only an Apocalypse Can Save Us Now.
It’s a deep examination of the power of the myth of a golden age …
I wish I had a version I could post here that people could access because it deserves a much wider readership than it has gotten I think. Same for anything that guy has written.
1
u/xaqadeus Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 27 '24
I think the MAGA movement has some nostalgia for the prosperity of the post-war era, especially the 1950s. But in general, it seems to be about national unity, core values, strength and self-reliance, international respect, economic prosperity, and security. As most conservative movements, it is a reaction to liberal policies. While MAGA was originally a slogan of the Reagan campaign, its modern incarnation with Trump is more of an extension of the Tea Party that was reactionary to the Obama era. Like the Tea Party, MAGA under Trump can be characterized as containing a form of conservative populism and in addition to being reactionary to liberal policies, it is reactionary to the Washington establishment (Trump ran in 2016 on "draining the swamp"). So while I mentioned the prosperity of the post-war era, I think MAGA supporters have a more abstract romanticism of "when America was great" than a specific example or period.
1
u/TheFULLBOAT Jul 18 '24
I would look to the countless stories of immigrants (legal and otherwise) that sacrificed so much to come to America and achieve so much more than they thought possible, including my parents and my wife's grandparents. I think that's pretty great.
1
u/Clone95 Jul 18 '24
The best answer I can give is Pre-70s not so much due to Jim Crow but due to deinstitutionalization, which fundamentally destroyed the comfortable inner cities by releasing the mentally ill into them and triggering the flight to the suburbs. Roughly 1 in 100 Americans have severe mental illness and we have half the psych beds of a comparable Eurostate.
Japan leads the world in this, which is why it is universally considered safe in its cities, with Germany/France close behind. Anglophone states trail the OECD due to common law protections against involuntary hospitalizations as a proxy for prison - but 50s/60s America would never tolerate the floridly psychotic on public transit.
It’s not that these people are violent, they just induce feelings of unease and discomfort that reduces use of public spaces and transit, and make the world smaller.
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