It's not just a slogan from Donald Trump, the idea of "Making America Great Again" and "Taking America Back [To something or away from someone]" is something we've been hearing for the entire six years of Barack Hussein Obama's Presidency.
It's the primary theme of the Tea Party and the larger GOP.
They argue that at some point, or possibly several, America was so much better and greater than it is today.
I mean we've only had the unemployment rate drop from 10% in 2009 when Barack Obama took the oath of Office to just 5.3% today. We've seen the Federal Deficit decrease from a height of $1.4 Trillion in 2009, to now just 1/5th of that at $474 Million projected for 2016. Because of Obamacare the health care uninsured rate has droped 6 points to just 11.4%. The life of the Medicare Trust Fund has been extended, again thanks to Obamacare, by an additional 13 years until 2030. Social Security is fully funded until 2033. America is very nearly Energy Independent of foreign fossil fuels while Renewable Fuels are surging forward projected to take up 2/3rds of the spending on new power plants over the next 25 years. LGBT individuals can now serve their country without reservations or limits, and can marry the consenting person of their choice. The American Car industry is surging forward after nearly pulling their own death shroud over themselves in 2009. Osama Bin Laden is Dead. Mohamar Quaddafi who masterminded the bombing of Pan Am 103, is Dead. Tens of thousands of American soldiers are no longer fighting a War in Iraq or in Afghanistan. Relations with Cuba have been re-established. We stand on the verge of a historic nuclear deal with Iran. America is still considered well internationally with a global favorability rating of 69% according to Pew Research which is a 4% improvement from last year. 62% of people around the World Support our efforts against ISIL. 69% of 40 countries surveyed support President Obama.
Not to say everything is totally rosey, it's not, we still have significant problems and challenges ahead of us. Problems with Income Inequality and Upward Mobility, with the quality of our Educational System, with the Militarization of Police and their unwarranted use of force particularly against the mentally ill, poor and persons of color, with the manipulations of our currency and investments by the stock market, China and hedge fund managers without consequence, with Gun Violence, with the VA backlog. Clearly will still have room for massive improvement. Many goals remain unmet.
During all of America's History for each of it's moves forward there have always been continuing nagging failures at the same time.
Still, Conservatives seem to believe there was a time when America really was the "Shining City on the Hill" without blemish and without tarnish. Over the flip I will ask, when exactly the hell was that?
Was America "Great" when the Bush Administration refused to step in and ERON destroyed California's Economy?
Was America "Great" when it it ignored warning after warning including the August 6th PDB that "Osama Bin Laden was determined to Attack the U.S."?
Was America "Great" when it invaded an unarmed nation over WMDs and connections to Al Qaeda that didn't exist, and to stop Iraq from processing yellowcake uranium they didn't have with aluminum tubes that wouldn't have worked, and from processing chemical weapons in mobile labs that were a fantasy, then tossed the Iraqi army out into the street without disarming them and functionally sowed the seeds for creating ISIL?
Was America "Great" when we sent out our soldier to fight with "Hillbilly Armor"?
Was America "Great" when it resorted to Torture in order to prove the lie that Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11? Or when it paid off Iraq's former Intelligence Chief to write a forged letter to prove Saddam had supported and trained the leader of the 9/11 attack and really did try to get Uranium from Niger for a Nuclear Bomb?
Was America "Great" when the Vice President's Office revealed the ID of an undercover CIA Agent working on WMD in Iraq because her husband was exposing the lies of the Bush Administration?
Was America "Great" when the Bush White house ran their emails through an outside RNC server then lost millions of their emails for two years once they were under subpoena over the Valerie Plame affair and the U.S. Attorney Firing Scandal?
Was America "Great" when we ignored the the plight of the people of New Orleans for nearly a week after Hurricane Katrina hit and just let hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans die?
Was America "Great" when it allowed Wall Street to Repeat the Enron, bet the farm on Park Place and lost it all, crashing the economy and destroying millions of jobs?
Was America "Great" when anyone who criticized the Bush Administration, for basically anything, was said to "Hate America" or "Blame America First" or both. Usually both.
Wasn't America "Great" when President Clinton ended the Bosnian War without a single American soldier being harmed even though it took years for him to get the international support he needed while hundreds of thousands, if not millions, suffered through "Ethnic Cleansing"? Yay! Kinda.
Was America "Great" when we stood by and didn't nothing about the killing in Rwanda or in Darfur?
Wasn't America "Great" when President Clinton negotiated a peace deal between Israel and Palestine only to have it fall apart when hard-line Israelis assassinated their own prime minister?
Wasn't America "Great" when President Clinton signed a budget bill that raised taxes on the Rich and started bringing the deficit down for the first time in almost two decades, which ultimately not only balanced the budget, but created a surplus for two years until President Bush wasted it on his two wars that should have never even started?
Was America "Great" during the Reagan era when we built an economic recovery on the backs of the poor, began exploding the deficit, ran out of Beirut like a scarred rabbit, invaded Grenada for no logical reason, bombed Qadaffi and missed, ignored Aids and Crack for years, invented the junk bond, began the "War On Drugs" incarcerating people by the millions, traded missiles to Iran, the Challenger Space Shuttle Blew up, funded terrorists in South America and supported the jihadis that ultimately became the Taliban and Al Qeada?
Wasn't America "Great" when President Reagan personally took a sledge hammer and tore down the Berlin Wall. Wait, what do you mean he wasn't even President anymore? Was that David Hasselhoff, or was it Bruce Springsteen?
Speaking of Springsteen wasn't it great when he let Reagan use his ode to American Exceptionalism and Greatness "Born in the U.S.A?" Whaddayamean he said "NO"?
Wasn't America "Great" when President Carter negotiated a peace deal between Israel and Egypt only to have it fall apart, ok - well - this deal survived, when hard-line Egyptians assassinated their own prime minister?
Was America "Great" during COINTELPRO, when we illegally spied on Dr. Martin Luther King then tried to blackmail him into suicide, after calling him a "Socialist, Communist & Traitor"?
Wasn't America "Great" when Nixon opened up China - see how great that's worked out?
Was America "Great" when we setup this incredible massive and expensive government jobs project that managed to put a man on the moon? Was America "Great" at Altamont? At Kent State? When we carpet bombed Cambodia? When Martin was killed, when Malcolm was killed, when John was killed, when Bobby was killed? When we deposed the democratically elected government of Iran to put in our puppet - the Shah?
Was America "Great" when it implemented the Tuskegee Experiment to secretly let black men with syphilis slowly suffer and die while their doctors took notes rather than give them the right medicine?s
Was America "Great" the last time a Republican President had a balanced budget, remember, in Eisenhower's Administration when the top marginal tax rate was 92%?
Was America "Great" when it's Unions and the GI Bill following World War II built a great robust middle class with high wages and great benefits, while at the same time people openly bashed, shamed and murdered gays, while suspected "commies" were black listed and people were brought before the "Unamerican Activities" committee to give up the names of their friends, family and coworkers?
Was America "Great" during World War II when we saved the World from the Fascism of Hitler and Tojo using a segregated Army, whose black soldiers had to return home from the front to Jim Crow, Red-Lining, Segregation and lynching? Yep, we whooped tyranny, yes we did.
Was America truly "Great" during the Great Depression, when we had the Gatsby and the Robber Barons, Oil Tycoons, child labor, no minimum wage, no weekend, no overtime, the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, the deadly violence of prohibition and all our Gansgtas were White like Capone, Pretty Boy Floyd and Machine-Gun Kelly?
Was America "Great" when it established it's first laws over immigration which specifically blocked more Asians from entering the country after they'd finished building our railroads and we decided we didn't need anymore of the "Yellow Peril" who might compete with White people for jobs?
Was America "Great" while the KKK terrorized the people of the South?
Was America "Great" during the Trail of Tears?
Was it "Great" when millions of Americans died in the Civil War trying to maintain the ability of private business to grow rich from the degradation of African Slaves? Or when the Dred Scott decision came down saying that even a free black man had no human, civil or citizenship rights?
Was America "Great" when it created a country on the back of a Constitution that was supposed to enshrine "All men are created equal" yet allowed for Slavery to continue and devalued Africans to the point of being only worth 3/5ths of anyone else?
Now, to be fair America has done truly great things in it's past. As it was said in Harry Potter, "Many Terrible Things, but Great." Most of the truly great positive things that America has done have all been accomplished because of something awful, sometimes the most positive of them was simply no longer doing the terrible thing anymore.
We have been great in our past, but I'm not exactly certain that people in the GOP truly even know when that was, or what it was that we did that was so great and really what we should be doing to really become "Great Again".
I don't think they have a clue.
Vyan