Dwain Northey (Gen X)

I have been struggling with the phrase Make America Great Again. Trump, although he would like you to believe it, was not the first to start this nationalistic movement it was Ronald R Reagan in his campaign for the White House against Jimmy Carter. Even then when I was 12-13 years old, I didn’t understand the Again part of the phrase. Being born in the late 60’s I had always been told that America was the Greatest country so the cry for making it great again was perplexing.

Now as an adult and having a firmer grasp on the real history of our country I frequently ask the question of the MAGA faithful, Ok When? That very simple question is regularly met with blank looks and disdain for me being presumptuous to even ask such a preposterous question.

Trump has banged his drum and heralded from cost to cost that only he can make America great again, but still no one has indicated the specific point in which America was great.

I know it is a very simple inquiry…When was the moment that everything in our nearly 250-year history has been great and great for all?

The founder had a lofty vision of a country that was for the people and by the people. The second paragraph of the United States Declaration of Independence signed in 1776 starts: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The Constitution enacted in 1789 starts “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” It isn’t until the 1886 when the 14^th Amendment was ratified that all U.S. citizens when, under the law considered equal. Up until that point slavery an everyday occurrence owning another person was just the way it was.

So, was the period between 1776 and 1886 when America was great? But remember from 1860 to 1865 we had a Civil War so that couldn’t have been when we were Great. Then Reconstruction after the Civil War 1865 to 1877 was kind of a Shit Show.

Well, that blows a century that I assume we can agree that America wasn’t Great.

After the end of Reconstruction, racial segregation laws were enacted. These laws became popularly known as Jim Crow laws. They remained in force from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 until 1965. The laws mandated racial segregation as policy in all public facilities in the southern states. So even though we enacted a law that said all were equal we really didn’t mean it.

In the same period industry started and vast fortunes were made by a few while the multitude suffered. This was also when some tire to stand up and start unions that would fight for the rights of workers. Hard times but better, there was still little equality. Black where recognized as citizens but hardly had any power to exercise that right and women, women were still considered property of their fathers or husband.

So was it this period when America was great before suffrage before the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted American women the right to vote, a right known as women’s suffrage, and was ratified on August 18, 1920, ending almost a century of protest. Was that the historical time we were Great?

We came together as a Nation During WWI and the roaring 20’s seemed like a pretty good time that was until the fun dried up that the country went into the Great Depression after the 1929 stock market crash. That sucked for us as a country. FDR was elected in 1932 and inaugurated in 1933 and his leadership pulled us back from the brink. A lot of good things happened to help the common citizen, there was still segregation, but thing looked better.

Just when things looked better here the world was still dealing with the economic collapse and the rise of Hitler and Mussolini… but we had an isolationist policy, and we were not going to get suckered into another world war. We all know how that turned out, we helped for years without getting involved but then on Dec. 7^th, 1941, we were attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor, Japan declared war on the United States and 2 days later Germany did the same. No more isolation, we were in the thick of it. Well, the United Nations won that war, at great cost, but we won. Let not forget that Asian American citizens were rounded up and put in internment camps during WWII.

So, was that when we were Great?

Soldiers came back and everything was supposed to be smooth sailing. It was for some but not for other the same ugly monster of segregation was still alive and well. Black & Brown solders that had fought in WWII were summarily disenfranchised by the country they fought to defend, when white soldiers could get loans and by houses with mortgages backed by the U.S. government when Black and Brown soldiers that had made the same sacrifices were excluded for the same programs.

That shit continued until Civil Rights Act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on July 2, 1964, prohibited discrimination in public places, provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination illegal. It was the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. There was still Red Lining so not everything was fixed.

Looks like we are running out of space on the timeline to define was America was great…

There was Nixon, that was a shit show although he did start the EPA. Carter tried to do some good but was stymied along the way. Reagan who started the whole Make America Great campaign really had no reference to point to as far as a great period to harken back to. Then he fucked it up with the whole Iran Contra debacle. Bush Sr. was no prize just continued to dig a financial pit for the country. Clinton had the 90’s which brought a lot of prosperity, and he actually balanced the budget. Then along came Baby Bush and 9-11 and the beginning of a 20-year war in the middle east. More than the war in Iraq and Afghanistan I was to blame Bush Jr for letting the assault weapons ban expire the President Clinton had signed in 1994. Obama tried and did a pretty good job of getting us back on track, we still had a war in the middle east we didn’t need to be in, but he did get the country the ACA, Affordable Care Act. Unfortunately, because of the NRA and the expiration of the Assault Weapons ban mass shooting became a thing in the United States and school shootings became a nightmarish reality.

So now we are caught up to Donald’s reign… someone need to tell me what period in our tumultuous 250 years we were great.

Our goal has to be better than we were yesterday and definitely better than we were when we started.

The Declaration of Independence started by declaring that all men were created equal… lets live up to that!

Thanks again for suffering through my rant.