What Makes a Country ‘Great’ in the First Place?
We need to answer that question before we try 'making [insert country] great again.'
Make America Great Again.
If you’re like me, this phrase hits you with the same visceral force as a badly swung golf club to the face. We recognize it at a glance as the slogan of Donald J. Trump, the recently re-elected president convicted of 34 felony counts.
I’ll bet that you didn’t know it’s been used before.
The phrase has a long history, going back to the 1940s. It was used by Alexander Wiley, a Republican Senator from Wisconsin. He spoke of the need for a leader who could unite the people, and ‘make America great again.’
It was used by Barry Goldwater, the man credited with pushing the Republican party towards racist policies with the Southern Strategy. The slogan appeared in campaign posters and advertising.
It’s been used by Ronald Reagan during his 1980 presidential campaign, citing the economic issues facing the country and his intention to ‘fix’ them.
Even Bill Clinton jumped in on the phrase, both in his run and raising its spectre again during Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign.
The slogan has been around for a long time. There’s a lot of history behind it. And every time someone has brought it up, they’ve had different ideas of what exactly it means for a country to be ‘great.’
To be fair, the vagueness of the phrase is the entire point.
When you invoke a statement like that, ‘Make America great again’, you’re pandering to the masses who feel dissatisfied in some way. When you leave it undefined, it allows them to fill in the blanks. It leaves room for interpretation.
A conservative voter in the 1960s had an entirely different view of what makes America ‘great’ than a modern-day progressive. I doubt that any modern-day progressive would concede that America has ever been ‘great’ to begin with, but that’s neither here nor there.
The concept of greatness is very subjective, and the ideals and opinions of the individual will always sway the definition. Having said that, I’m an opinionated lady. I have a few ideas of my own.
I think the greatness of a country—its entire value and reputation—should be based upon its integrity. Not integrity in the form of unity, mind you, but of honesty and morality.
If a country were to say, describe itself as a land of freedom, equality, and justice, then it ought to be free, equal, and just. It should put its money where its mouth is, don’t you think?
In effect, I don’t think a country can call itself great if it’s basing its self-identity on hypocrisy and dishonest propaganda.
If your people have to keep fighting for the same basic rights, decade after decade, year after year, then I have some bad news.
Your country isn’t great.
Yeah, I said it. It isn’t great now, and it wasn’t great back then. In fact, for a good portion of the population, the country has been a giant pile of oppression and pain.
I know it’s a bit cliche to bring this up, but it bears repeating until it gets through everybody’s head: The same men who penned the words ‘all men are created equal’ were literally slave owners.
If your gut instinct is to respond with something akin to ‘Why should I be punished for what my ancestors did’, don’t bother. I agree with you. You don’t bear responsibility for what was done by other people in the past.
But you sure as heck bear responsibility for what you do in the present.
Ignoring bigotry and hate if it isn’t touching you personally is just as bad as taking part in it yourself. Silence in the face of discrimination is tantamount to complicity, especially with the escalation taking place right now.
If you’re turning a blind eye to what’s been going on since Donald Trump was elected again, and if you’re shrugging everything off so long as you aren’t against the wall, you’re complicit.
That goes for racism. That goes for anti-LGBTQ+ hatred. That goes for religious zealotry, and it goes for sexism. It goes for xenophobia and ableism.
You should be speaking out against it and raising hell. You should be calling it out. You should be engaging in democracy while you still have a sliver of it left, pressuring your elected representatives to act in defence of the people they were chosen to serve.
Qui tacet consentire videtur. Those who remain silent shall be assumed to agree.
If you want to talk about making America ‘great’, then you need to square with that first.
If you want to make America great, then it needs to be great for everybody.
As long as certain people are treated differently due to wealth, gender identity, sex, who they love, skin colour, or any other such traits, America isn’t great.
It won’t be great until it lives up to the virtues and ideals that it preaches to the world. Freedom, equality, and justice for all.
Lest you think I’m arrogantly punching down, I’m Canadian. My country certainly isn’t great either, and it never has been. We have our own work to do before we can even begin to make that claim. There is no glowing, heroic past for either of our nations to grandstand on.
I still have hope that we could get there someday. But it’s going to take a lot of effort, and a lot of difficult conversations.
We’re going to need to settle on a definition first. We’re going to need to hold to it with integrity. And we’re going to need to be willing to put our money where our mouths are.
American politicians have been promising to make the country ‘great’ for 80 years. Not a single one of them has ever kept that vow. Their constituents have continued to suffer, to struggle, to be treated with contempt and spat upon if they dared to demand better.
America continues to be a country where the needs of the many are ignored, so long as the wealthiest among you continue to prosper.
America is a country where poverty is punished, where your skin colour determines your treatment under the law, where your gender or sex limits your paths through life and where your level of ability or who you love can bring hatred down on your head.
It’s a country where you can be hated and branded a criminal for being born somewhere else, even if you came to the country as a baby in your parent’s arms.
A country’s greatness should be based on its integrity and how well it cares for its people.
The MAGA movement will never succeed at their chosen slogan, because it isn’t possible for greatness to come from the beliefs they espouse. Greatness doesn’t come from hate and pain.
America will become great when it lives up to the values it preaches to the world. It wants to be the shining city on the hill, the beacon of light and democracy and the bastion of liberty that keeps evil at bay.
As long as Trump sits in the White House, it can’t be. He won’t allow it, because that isn’t in his heart. And as long as its citizens are okay with the status quo, it’s not going to get any better.
You can’t make America great again, because it was never great in the past. It’s not about going back to a mythical time of grandeur and joy. It’s about creating something amazing for the future.
Don’t look to the past for greatness. Look for ways to invent greatness right now.
Solidarity wins.
I can't remember who said this, but it was along the lines of a good country being one that took good care of both its very young and its very old.
Well said. This is the message that needs to be shouted on the rooftops. And shared everywhere possible. I'll start.