Oragin of Make America Great Again

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Did you ever wonder why Donald Trump's "Brand America Great Again" slogan took such root among the Republican base of operations? Did it symbolize a return to an age when wages were higher and jobs more secure? Or was it coded racial language designed to indicate a rollback to a fourth dimension when people of color (and women) knew their place? In the soul-searching and recrimination amongst Democrats later on Hillary Clinton'due south defeat, both theories have their champions.

Just a closer look at bourgeois rhetoric in contempo years reveals that "Brand America Keen Again" was not Trump's invention. It evolved from a phrase that became central to the Republican establishment during the Obama years: "American exceptionalism." People oft equate the expression with the notion that God made America "a urban center upon a loma," in the words of the Puritan colonist John Winthrop. However, as University of California-Berkeley sociology professor Jerome Karabel noted in a 2011 article, this usage only came into vogue later on Barack Obama became president. Previously it was mainly used by academics to mean that America is an exception compared with other Western democracies, for meliorate or worse, equally illustrated by its height-notch universities or its bare-bones gun control.

Prior to 2008, "American exceptionalism" appeared in news articles a handful of times a year, but later on Obama was elected the references skyrocketed, largely because of a drumbeat from Republicans. Once the tea party wave fabricated John Boehner speaker of the House in 2010, for example, he summarized the growing consensus amidst Republicans: Obama had turned his back on the Founding Fathers to the point where he "refused to talk about American exceptionalism." (In fact, in 2009 the president had stated, "I believe in American exceptionalism.") The phrase's popularity in GOP talking points—frequently in attacks on Obama'southward "socialist" policies—paralleled the spread of conspiracy theories most his citizenship and supposed jihadi sympathies.

Defending "American exceptionalism" was a theme of Mitt Romney'due south 2012 campaign; he blasted Obama for supposedly thinking that "America'south just another nation" destined to become "a European-style entitlement social club." Romney'due south campaign co-chair John Sununu added that Obama should "acquire how to be an American." (He later apologized.)

The 2016 Republican presidential candidates and their surrogates sang the aforementioned melody. When Play tricks News pundit Sean Hannity asked Jeb Bush for his thoughts on exceptionalism, Bush replied, "I practise believe in American exceptionalism," unlike Obama, who "is disrespecting our history and the extraordinary nature of our country." Rudy Giuliani was more explicit. "I do not believe that the president loves America," he asserted, suggesting Obama did non think "we're the most exceptional state in the world." During a speech a month later in Selma, Alabama, the president pointed out that the ongoing fight for ceremonious rights is a cornerstone of what makes America exceptional.

To become more than of a quantitative sense of the phrase's evolution, I analyzed the Republican Party platform. All party platforms typically emphasize faith in American greatness, but betwixt 1856 and 2008, the GOP never used the expression "American exceptionalism" or even the describing word "exceptional" to describe the country. By dissimilarity, the concluding section of the 2012 Republican platform lambasting the Obama presidency was titled "American exceptionalism." The 2016 platform put the phrase into the first line of its preamble: "We believe in American exceptionalism." The evolution of "American exceptionalism" into an anti-Obama rallying cry with nativist overtones evoked earlier appeals to "states' rights" to rouse whites resenting the terminate of segregation.

In his book Fourth dimension to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again, Trump, as well, framed his agenda as a defense of "American exceptionalism." "Maybe my biggest beef with Obama is his view that at that place's nix special or exceptional about America—that we're no different than whatsoever other country." Trump later adopted a catchier slogan, "Brand America Great Again," but it retained the nativist overtones and racial dog whistles of the showtime. Paired with Trump's open conspiracy-mongering about Obama'southward forged birth document and supposed Muslim faith, it amplified and dramatized the Republican establishment'southward slyer assertions about Obama's un-American values.

Trump would eventually abandon dog whistles in favor of blunter race-baiting. What remains to be seen is whether he and the Republican establishment will continue flashing the "exceptionalism" signal in the mail service-Obama years—to paint new opponents as un-American—or whether that language was uniquely deployed to delegitimize the nation'due south get-go black president. At the very to the lowest degree, information technology provided fertile ground for Trumpism.

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Source: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/american-exceptionalism-maga-trump-obama/