President Donald J Trump Knows How to Make America Great Again
President-elect Donald Trump poses for a portrait at Trump Belfry on January. 17. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
"Make America Slap-up Again."
The four words that would help propel Donald Trump to the White Firm were an inspiration built-in years before, when inappreciably anyone merely Trump himself could imagine him taking the adjuration of function equally the 45th president of the United States.
It happened on Nov. seven, 2012, the day after Mitt Romney lost what had been presumed to be a winnable race against President Obama. Republicans were spiraling into an identity crisis, one that had some wondering whether a GOP president would ever sit in the Oval Office again.
But on the 26th floor of a aureate Manhattan tower that bears his name, Trump was coming to the conclusion that his own moment was at hand.
And in typical fashion, the first thing he thought near was how to make information technology.
Ane after some other, phrases popped into his head. "We Will Make America Swell." That one did not have the right ring. Then, "Make America Great." But that sounded like a slight to the country.
And and then, it striking him: "Make America Great Once again."
"I said, 'That is and then good.' I wrote it down," Trump recalled in an interview. "I went to my lawyers. I accept a lot of lawyers in-business firm. Nosotros have many lawyers. I have got guys that handle this stuff. I said, 'Meet if you can accept this registered and trademarked.' "
(Alice Li/The Washington Postal service)
Five days later, Trump signed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Function, in which he asked for exclusive rights to use "Make America Dandy Once again" for "political action committee services, namely, promoting public awareness of political bug and fundraising in the field of politics." He enclosed a $325 registration fee.
His was a vision that ran against the conventional wisdom of the fourth dimension — in fact, it was "much the opposite," Trump said.
To salve itself, the Republican institution was convinced, the GOP would take to sand off its edges, become kinder and more inclusive. "Make America Great Again" was divisive and astern-looking. It fabricated no nod to multifariousness or civility or progress.
It sounded like a death wish.
Merely Trump had seen something unlike in the country, and in the daily lives of its struggling citizens.
"I felt that jobs were hurting," he said. "I looked at the many types of disease our land had, and whether information technology's at the border, whether it'due south security, whether information technology's police and guild or lack of police and social club. Then, of course, you become to merchandise, and I said to myself, 'What would be good?' I was sitting at my desk, where I am right now, and I said, 'Brand America Bang-up Once more.' "
Democrats slammed it.
"If you're looking for someone to say what is wrong with America, I'g not your candidate. I think there is more right than wrong," Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton said. "I don't remember we have to make America great. I recollect nosotros have to brand America greater."
Her husband, onetime president Bill Clinton, went so far as to declare it a racist canis familiaris whistle.
"I'g actually sometime plenty to remember the skillful old days, and they weren't all that skilful in many means," he said at a rally in Orlando. "That message where 'I'll give you lot America great again' is if you're a white Southerner, you know exactly what it means, don't yous?"
The slogan itself was not entirely original. Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush had used "Let's Brand America Bang-up Once again" in their 1980 campaign — a fact that Trump maintained he did not know until most a year ago.
"But he didn't trademark it," Trump said of Reagan.
His decision to claim legal ownership reflected a businessman'due south mind-set up. "I think I'1000 somebody that understands marketing," Trump said.
Trump Arrangement lawyer Alan Garten said Trump holds upwards of 800 trademarks in more than 80 countries.
The trademark became constructive on July 14, 2015, a month after Trump formally announced his entrada and met the legal requirement that he was actually using it for the purposes spelled out in his awarding.
Having won the trademark, Trump was aggressive in protecting his thought. When his GOP primary rivals Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker began tucking "make America groovy once more" into their own speeches, Trump's lawyers fired off terminate-and-desist letters.
Trump'due south red trucker cap featuring the Make America Great Again slogan was ubiquitious during the campaign. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
More just a hat
Trump was an impulsive and erratic candidate who ran a cluttered campaign. The one constant, it often seemed, was "Make America Not bad Again."
"I didn't know it was going to catch on like it did. It's been amazing," Trump said. "The hat, I guess, is the biggest symbol, wouldn't you say?"
At that place were plenty of snickers when his Federal Election Commission filings showed that his campaign was spending more on "Brand America Nifty Again" trucker caps than on polling, political consultants, staff or telly ads.
"An appropriate icon for his failing campaign," the Washington Examiner'south Philip Wegmann wrote in late October. "The millions of hats will brand excellent keepsakes for those who thought his populist bravado could overcome Clinton's unimaginative and conventional but well-oiled political machine."
Trump saw the hats as a fundraising and advertising vehicle. He was thrilled when his entrada headgear landed in the New York Times Manner department — during Way Week, no less.
"In the Fashion section, information technology was the decoration — what do you call that? — an accessory. They said the accompaniment of the twelvemonth. You know the hat. You lot'd see people going to the fanciest balls at the Waldorf Astoria wearing ruddy hats," he exulted.
As is often the case, Trump's clarification is more than a petty hyperbolic. What the newspaper actually wrote was that the "old-school" caps had become "the ironic must-accept fashion accompaniment of the summer," favored by hipsters for their "uncanny ability to capture the electric current absurdist political moment."
None of which fazed the celebrity billionaire who had debuted the hats by wearing i during a July 2015 trip to the Mexican edge — or the legions of supporters who raced to snap them up. Trump had designed them himself, he said. The basic models sold through his entrada website were priced at $25.
"How many did nosotros sell? Does anyone know? Millions!" Trump said in the interview.
"It was copied, unfortunately. It was knocked off by 10 to one. It was knocked off by others. But it was a slogan, and every time somebody buys one, that'southward an advertisement."
Nevertheless many hats he sold, what cannot be disputed is that "Brand America Great Again" caught on. It was the most effective kind of political bulletin, seize with teeth-sized and visceral.
"It really inspired me," Trump said, "because to me, information technology meant jobs. It meant industry, and meant military strength. It meant taking care of our veterans. It meant and then much."
[When was America bully? Information technology depends on who you lot are.]
That kind of mission argument was something that Clinton's entrada — for all its poll testing and loftier-priced advice from Madison Avenue — struggled to clear.
Her strategists considered 85 possibilities for a general-election campaign slogan before settling on "Stronger Together," co-ordinate to an email from the account of campaign chairman John Podesta that was published by WikiLeaks.
What they were up against was aught short of "a marketing genius," said David Axelrod, who had been Obama'due south chief political strategist. Trump "understood the market that he was trying to reach. Yous can't deny him that. He was very focused from the start on who he was talking to."
While Clinton carried the pop vote, Trump lined upwards the states he needed to win what mattered: the electoral college.
"In terms of galvanizing the market that he was talking to," Axelrod said, "he did it single-mindedly and ingeniously."
Thinking reelection
Halfway through his interview with The Washington Mail service, Trump shared a fleck of news: He already has decided on his slogan for a reelection bid in 2020.
"Are you ready?" he said. " 'Keep America Great,' assertion point."
"Go me my lawyer!" the president-elect shouted.
Two minutes afterward, ane arrived.
"Will you trademark and register, if you would, if you similar it — I think I like it, right? Exercise this: 'Keep America Great,' with an exclamation point. With and without an exclamation. 'Keep America Corking,' " Trump said.
"Got it," the lawyer replied.
That bit of business out of the way, Trump returned to the interview.
"I never idea I'd be giving [you lot] my expression for 4 years [from now]," he said. "But I am so confident that we are going to be, it is going to be then amazing. Information technology's the merely reason I give it to you. If I was, similar, ambiguous about it, if I wasn't sure near what is going to happen — the state is going to be dandy."
All of which raises the questions: How can greatness be measured and sensed? What does it even mean?
"Existence a great president has to practise with a lot of things, merely ane of them is being a corking cheerleader for the state," Trump said. "And we're going to bear witness the people as we build up our military, we're going to display our military.
"That military may come marching down Pennsylvania Artery. That military may be flight over New York Urban center and Washington, D.C., for parades. I mean, we're going to be showing our military," he added.
But Trump best-selling that slogans and showmanship will not exist the ultimate tests of whether the country is "great over again."
The president-elect has an ambitious to-do list for the next four years: edifice stronger borders, keeping the country safe against terrorism, producing more jobs, repealing the Affordable Care Act, replacing it with something improve, promoting excellence in technology and science, investing in mod infrastructure.
Ultimately, it volition exist up to the people for whom "Brand America Great Again" was a covenant, not a slogan, to decide whether the 45th president has lived upwardly to his promise.
"I remember they take to feel it," Trump acknowledged. "Being a cheerleader or a salesman for the land is very important, but you still have to produce the results."
"Honestly, yous oasis't seen anything however. Wait till you see what happens, starting side by side Monday," he said. "A lot of things are going to happen. Neat things."
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Alice Crites contributed to this report.
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-donald-trump-came-up-with-make-america-great-again/2017/01/17/fb6acf5e-dbf7-11e6-ad42-f3375f271c9c_story.html
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