Trump Lets Make Our Famers Great Again
Trump Wants To 'Brand America Great Again,' Only What Does That Really Hateful?
"Make America Great Again" is the driving refrain of Donald Trump's presidential entrada, the title of ii Trump-authored books as well. Few would have a problem with the outset three words. But it is that fourth — "again" -- that raises hackles.
Amusingly, Trump actually trademarked the slogan. Co-ordinate to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Role, 1 Donald J. Trump, an individual at 725 Fifth Avenue in New York, has the correct to "Make America Great Again" for "political action committee services" as well equally "fundraising in the field of politics."
Even better, Trump — ever the marketer -- also has the merchandising rights. He owns the right to use "Brand America Great Once more" on "all-purpose athletic bags; all-purpose conveying bags; backpacks; embankment bags; book bags; comport-all bags; alter purses" and so on. Fifty-fifty on "pet clothing." If it can be worn, Trump has it locked upward.
Trump -- e'er the marketer -- also has the merchandising rights. He owns the right to use 'Make America Great Once more' on 'all-purpose athletic numberless...' Even on 'pet clothing.' If it can exist worn, Trump has it locked up.
There'south much dispute over Trump's legal cribbing of a phrase that one would have expected many pols to light upon. Indeed, Ronald Reagan used the slogan before, in his successful 1980 race confronting Jimmy Carter. Reagan, however, manifestly wasn't clever enough to trademark it — either that, or he was insufficiently mercenary. As The Donald doubtless would point out, that'southward why he'due south a billionaire and the rest of us aren't.
Buying rights aside, a substantive question should be asked: Is Trump right? Saying "permit'southward make America great again" implies that it is not great now. It implies equally well that in that location was a fourth dimension when it was bang-up — or at least, better than it is today.
The nation is 240 years old; the Constitution itself, 228. The ethics of the United states were best expressed in the 1776 Announcement of Independence: "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed past their Creator with sure unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The Constitution was created to brand those ideals reality (indeed, the Annunciation was explicit in that: "to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men").
So in the two-plus centuries since, how accept nosotros been doing?
Our ideals were commendable, but nosotros began desperately. The Constitution explicitly best-selling slavery and counted slaves as less than man — a fault not remedied until the mail-Ceremonious War amendments. Women weren't allowed to vote either — a fault finally fixed by the 19th Amendment in 1920.
Indeed, one doesn't have to be an acolyte of the leftist historian Howard Zinn to recognize that the full benefits of citizenship in the U.S. were for a long fourth dimension confined to the very few: For the about office, you had to be male, white, direct, propertied, educated, not a recent immigrant and besides (as Native Americans could testify) not an immigrant from long, long ago.
Much of that, of form, has changed. Indeed, the story of America is very much the story of our growing agreement that everyone is entitled to those "certain unalienable rights." Sometimes that's happened through amendment, other times through legislation, court decisions or just — and virtually powerfully — through irresolute attitudes. Fifty, 25 or even 10 years agone, it'due south difficult to imagine women, African-Americans, gay folks or whatever number of other minorities thinking America was great for them — or at least, it'southward hard to imagine them now thinking that yesterday's world afforded them more in the way of opportunities than today's.
And in fact, at that place's strong data bachelor to support the notion that opportunity in America — and opportunity is at the core of the American Dream — is ameliorate than it always was. Opportunity Nation -- a bipartisan project that has tried for the last five years to quantify the opportunity available to Americans — has only released its most iteration of what it calls the "Opportunity Index." The numbers are encouraging.
The index scores opportunity numerically. On the national level, it concludes that opportunity has improved 8.ix percent from 2011 to 2015. (Back then, the score was 49.half dozen; present it's 54.0. The numbers — like the Dow Jones Industrial Index — don't tell you lot much, except that college is ameliorate.) The index goes into item too, measuring opportunity state-by-state and even county-by-canton.
Vermont, it turns out, ranks first. Massachusetts is a close second. Much of the South is well downwardly in the rankings; New Mexico is dead last.
Trump'south slogan is ultimately pessimistic, bemoaning our times as so much worse than before, nostalgically looking back to some misremembered golden age in America. But that'southward not reality.
Why the differences? The index looks at three broad measures: the local economy, instruction, and community health (a catch-all that includes everything from crime rates to admission to health care). The basic argument is that strong economies, decent didactics and prophylactic and secure communities add up to opportunity for everyone. Massachusetts does well because it has low unemployment and one of the best educational systems in the nation (aye, really — the Bay State consistently gets tiptop grades in the National Assessment of Education Progress, the so-called "Nation'due south Report Card"). New Mexico, on the other mitt, is hurt by its high poverty and poor rates of high-school graduation.
In that location are two fundamental conclusions to depict from the index. Showtime, although the alphabetize doesn't contain data from before 2011, yet it seems clear that if it attempted that exercise, the level of opportunity in recent times would evidence far better than they were in years by. The reason is straightforward: Opportunity for some is not opportunity for all.
The 2d is that opportunity is something that'due south within our command. Nearly every gene that the alphabetize looks at is affected in part by public policy at the federal, state and local levels, including items such as preschool enrollment, access to grocery stores and affordable housing. Become those right, and nosotros make the American Dream ever more attainable.
Trump's slogan is ultimately pessimistic, bemoaning our times as and then much worse than before, nostalgically looking back to some misremembered golden age in America. But that'south not reality. Nosotros're better at present than we ever accept been. And we have it in our hands to make the years ahead better notwithstanding.
Source: https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2016/01/15/donald-trump-trademark-slogan-tom-keane
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