I don't understand everything, not even with a long time to ponder. Take Trump's campaign slogan, for instance. It clearly implies America used to be great, but wasn't great right now. Though it could be great again by taking the right actions.
Hence the question: When was America last great?
At first I thought Trump might mean the early part of the Twentieth Century. We'd defeated Spain the the Spanish-American War, but hadn't yet become policeman to the world. (Even the Great War couldn't make that stick.) American industrialists were gobbling up great swaths of the landscape, and unionists were being mowed down by State Militias and whatnot. Minorities were kept in their places. And there was no pesky income tax to interfere with the accumulation of vast wealth.
The glory days of the nation—at least, as seen by the likes of Donald Trump.
So, was that the time Trump wanted to recapture?
Let's put my answer on hold for a moment and talk about what happened over the weekend. The gathering of the alt-right in Charlottesville, Virginia, met with counter protests, and a woman was run down by a car driven by a neo-Nazi.
President Trump condemned this horrific event, but laid the blame on violence and bigotry from "many sides, many sides." He was criticized for not naming the bad guys, for leaving it so vague. (Should the people who counter hatred also be called haters?)
But look, the man was in a tough position. Trump has already begun his 2020 reelection bid, and quite frankly, the alt-right represents a nice chunk of his peeps. For good reason, he didn't want to alienate those folks. They helped put him in the White House, and he would certainly like to count on them again. (If only guys like David Duke, former Grand Poobah of the KKK, would shut the hell up about supporting him!)
Two days later, Trump was hounded into saying the magic words: KKK, neo-Nazis, White Supremacists. (Someone may have written all this down for him.)
Recall how during the campaign he got this bug up his butt about how Hillary failed to use the term "radical Islamic terrorists." It was like a version of the Birther Movement applied to Hillary—the woman wasn't kosher, somehow. Anyway, it made sense to Trump, and he leaned on it pretty hard.
"If you can't name the evil you're fighting, you can win against it."
Something like that.
(Was he suggesting she was hoping to get the radical Islamic vote?)
Although he "joked" about Obama being a founder of ISIS, I don't recall Trump getting on the man for calling the group ISIL. Could've gone either way, though.
Back to Make America Great Again.
I think I finally got what it means: A return to those excellent days before the election of Barack Obama.
Which is why Trump seems obsessed with erasing everything Obama accomplished: Dreamers, gays and transgender folks in the military, environmental protections, a push for higher taxes on the wealthy, healthcare for most Americans.
Trump wants to undo all of that, along with NAFTA and the Iranian nuclear deal.
He wants to set the clock back eight years or so, before there was a Black Man in the White House. And I think the majority of his supporters decoded his message and voted to put white men back in charge of this country, the way God intended.
(In the Antebellum South, the Bible was quoted to justify the enslavement of blacks.)
A lot of Obama's work could be turned around with the stroke of a pen.
(To be accurate, many, many strokes of Trump's pen—I never saw a guy with a relatively short name take so long to scratch it on a piece of paper. And then hold it up for all to see: Donald J. Pneumoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis Trump.)
Getting Congress to cooperate in eviscerating Obama's legacy is proving more difficult. One of the biggest problems comes from adding the words "and replace" to the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. The Republicans can't figure out how to do that. And why should they? All they really wanted to do was get rid of it altogether.
If Trump yearns to be the anti-Obama, it may not even be a racist thing (though it likely is for a large number of his followers). Remember how Trump reacted (or failed to react) to Obama's jokes about him at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner a few years ago? Some think this is the main reason Trump tried so hard to become president.
Too bad he couldn't have run against Obama. If he could have defeated the man directly, and not just the guy's surrogate, maybe Trump wouldn't have to be so ruthless in the destruction of Obama's accomplishments. (Doesn't matter; he would have lost.)
But if the Donald had defeated Obama head to head, what would Trump's presidency be about?
Another question: Should a man with such a fragile ego be President of the United States of America?
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