It's Donald Trump's mantra for his 2016 Presidential Campaign, and let's face it, it has caught fire. With pollsters reporting over and over that voters are angry, there is nothing they want more than to feel like the side they're on, the country they're part of, the government they're going to elect, is going to make their country the best.
Ironically, when you break down the phrase, 'Make America Great Again', you have to make an initial assumption: that America isn't great now. Just for fun, I've included a chart which I obtained from Koema.com which lists the current rankings of country by GDP. The Gross Domestic Product of any country is a measure of its economy, in essence its productivity.
GDP, current prices
Now, let's look at the GDP based on purchasing power parity. The U.S. is second.
GDP based on PPP valuation
Where you could take issue is that the percentage of Real GDP Growth for the year 2015 for the U.S. was only 2.6% while the top percentage growth was in Papua New Guinea, a growth rate of 12%. How can that be? Well, the numbers should immediately issue a red flag, because obviously the reason for such a disparity is that for the U.S. to grow even 2.6% takes a huge amount of growth versus a small country like Papua New Guinea, where one good upturn from exports could bolster an already small GDP. According to Konema, the U.S. has also had increased Real GDP Growth for the last three years straight.
Economically, the United States is in better condition than just about every other country on the planet. Wouldn't that be considered great by all standards, particularly the World's?
Economically, the United States is in better condition than just about every other country on the planet. Wouldn't that be considered great by all standards, particularly the World's?
So if we're great economically, where is America not great?
I can come up with quite a few areas, but nearly all of them are internal and sociological, and none of them will a Trump Presidency do anything but aggravate: race relations issues, issues with our police force, our gun epidemic issues, immigration issues, tax issues and most of all political issues with our two and one half party system (the tea party gets a half). All of those issues sans maybe the tax issue, which will be subjectively argued depending on which part of the income spectrum you fall, Trump will likely exacerbate toward dividing us further.
I can come up with quite a few areas, but nearly all of them are internal and sociological, and none of them will a Trump Presidency do anything but aggravate: race relations issues, issues with our police force, our gun epidemic issues, immigration issues, tax issues and most of all political issues with our two and one half party system (the tea party gets a half). All of those issues sans maybe the tax issue, which will be subjectively argued depending on which part of the income spectrum you fall, Trump will likely exacerbate toward dividing us further.
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| Trump's slogans require examination |
Trump says we just don't win like we used to.
I'm not even sure what this means. Win what? Wars? Because in case we aren't considering the world nowadays we're actually in a global economy. So if we win at the expense of someone else economically, it doesn't really help us. Note Europe right now. They've got the flu, we've got a cold as a result. When our housing market crashed, several European Banks came down with it. We're all connected now whether we like it or not. So 'winning' in the old traditional sense is a bizarre and rather simplistic prism with which to view the world, isn't it?
Is he speaking of ISIS because they've had a few major terror attacks that have received an obnoxious amount of press? Could be.
I realize ISIS is a topic of emotion, but if we're looking at the world map, Russia, North Korea and China pose much greater threats to all of us as a country than this rogue group of radical Islamic terrorists. They can disrupt things sure, take a few hundred innocent people down with them randomly. But they don't pose a logistical threat to our country, one that is separated by thousands of miles from any nearest hot spot. Not to mention we are taking out a whole lot of them in bombing runs and through our Special Ops forces. None of their leadership can remain in one place very long or they'll find a drone joining them for dinner. This is reality. It doesn't mean they shouldn't be dealt with or taken seriously, but is winning what they're doing? Are we losing? Maybe I'm in the minority, but the land they've taken were in countries where the governments were all but in shambles. Where have they shown a true ability to do anything but disrupt?
I get that this is also the rational and non-emotional way of viewing ISIS, one that holds little water when you see the results of the Brussels bombings yesterday. And thus, it may feel like we're losing, even though we're not sure what losing is. And what would winning be? I doubt many Americans have that answer. Invade again? Ground troops? Nuke 'em? I think we all know the answer doesn't arrive as quickly as the question.
Was Trump suggesting we didn't win Iraq? Or Afghanistan? We never could have. It was naive to think in countries where tribal councils still function and clans have warlords running specific areas that we were going to step in and unite everyone. We're pretty good diplomatically, but certainly not that good. We watched what happened to the U.S.S.R. in Afghanistan in the 1980's and even armed the rebels led by Osama bin Laden (yes, that guy) against them, and still felt somehow when we went in in 2001 that we'd fare differently. That, my friends, is called one of two things: arrogance or ignorance. Maybe it was both.
But back to the topic at hand. These are just a few of the phrases bandied about this election that upon examination are nothing but a lot of hot air.
Yesterday Ted Cruz said something that again would make sense if you listen emotionally, but upon further examination is rather terrifying:
I'm not even sure what this means. Win what? Wars? Because in case we aren't considering the world nowadays we're actually in a global economy. So if we win at the expense of someone else economically, it doesn't really help us. Note Europe right now. They've got the flu, we've got a cold as a result. When our housing market crashed, several European Banks came down with it. We're all connected now whether we like it or not. So 'winning' in the old traditional sense is a bizarre and rather simplistic prism with which to view the world, isn't it?
Is he speaking of ISIS because they've had a few major terror attacks that have received an obnoxious amount of press? Could be.
I realize ISIS is a topic of emotion, but if we're looking at the world map, Russia, North Korea and China pose much greater threats to all of us as a country than this rogue group of radical Islamic terrorists. They can disrupt things sure, take a few hundred innocent people down with them randomly. But they don't pose a logistical threat to our country, one that is separated by thousands of miles from any nearest hot spot. Not to mention we are taking out a whole lot of them in bombing runs and through our Special Ops forces. None of their leadership can remain in one place very long or they'll find a drone joining them for dinner. This is reality. It doesn't mean they shouldn't be dealt with or taken seriously, but is winning what they're doing? Are we losing? Maybe I'm in the minority, but the land they've taken were in countries where the governments were all but in shambles. Where have they shown a true ability to do anything but disrupt?
I get that this is also the rational and non-emotional way of viewing ISIS, one that holds little water when you see the results of the Brussels bombings yesterday. And thus, it may feel like we're losing, even though we're not sure what losing is. And what would winning be? I doubt many Americans have that answer. Invade again? Ground troops? Nuke 'em? I think we all know the answer doesn't arrive as quickly as the question.
Was Trump suggesting we didn't win Iraq? Or Afghanistan? We never could have. It was naive to think in countries where tribal councils still function and clans have warlords running specific areas that we were going to step in and unite everyone. We're pretty good diplomatically, but certainly not that good. We watched what happened to the U.S.S.R. in Afghanistan in the 1980's and even armed the rebels led by Osama bin Laden (yes, that guy) against them, and still felt somehow when we went in in 2001 that we'd fare differently. That, my friends, is called one of two things: arrogance or ignorance. Maybe it was both.
But back to the topic at hand. These are just a few of the phrases bandied about this election that upon examination are nothing but a lot of hot air.
Yesterday Ted Cruz said something that again would make sense if you listen emotionally, but upon further examination is rather terrifying:
The American police should "patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized."
It sounds powerful, like we'll just keep these Muslim in check. It's what scared people want to hear. Yet, what exactly is Cruz suggesting here? How would our police 'secure' these specific neighborhoods and which ones are they? And what kind of action could and should the police take that if we substituted Christian or Jew for Muslim wouldn't immediately infringe upon their rights as Americans? Curfew? Martial Law? Exactly what is Cruz imagining the police are or should be allowed to do? With paranoia at high levels against Muslims all around the U.S., perhaps our electorate needs this kind of assurance that Muslims won't be allowed to get us. But examining the words and putting context to them should make anyone who values freedom worry about just what kind of assurance this gives us. And certainly this should scare the tails off of any minority group.
Hillary Clinton says we need to break down the barriers that separate us.
Certainly, on the surface to me that's a more positive message, but unless she's willing to engage the other side, radical as it may seem to her, then bringing people together is not what she's going to do. In fact, there was an article on CNN yesterday about the historically low favorability ratings that both she and Trump garner from the electorate while partisanship continues to rise.
Perhaps she's speaking about breaking down barriers between progressives. Or simply removing barriers regardless of what the rest of the population believes. Either way, this hardly feels like she'll be uniting anyone.
Slogans are slogans. They are used precisely because they are supposed to take an entire campaign and sum up one core message. But we as the electorate must parse those words and look for what the deeper meaning is.
Obama used the phrase, "Yes we can!" It was a positive and inclusive phrase, focusing on working together and engagement. And if you break it down further and look at his approach to things, it's pretty much what he's done whether you consider it right or wrong. He's engaged foreign leaders in diplomacy a lot of others wouldn't have. He's pushed forward against the Congress and their obstreperous nature. Like him or hate him, his slogan did help get him elected twice, and summed up his approach concisely.
Which leads me to the conclusion that almost none of the candidates have been able to sum up their ideology in a slogan that makes me comfortable. And that's a good thing. Because a slogan shouldn't make you comfortable. It should make you question further, much like when you see Volkswagon tout their new 2016 Beetle for sale. You aren't buying the slogan -- you're buying the car.
And in this case, I'm not so easily buying into many of these candidates. Perhaps you shouldn't either.
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