Maybe it’s time for us to take a page from the Trump script for ‘making America great again.’ After all, he took our descriptor, Fake News, and made it his own, turning it back on us.
Drive around New York State. Interior Maine. West Virginia. You won’t see happy people gainfully employed in sparkling towns and cities: you see decay and sadness, an aging infrastructure and ineffective schools. The unemployment rate may well be historically low, but that’s only because an historically low proportion of workers are actively looking for work. Who knows how they get along? Selling drugs? Doing odd jobs? Does anyone care?
What does making America great mean, anyway? Are we great because we’re a nuclear power? Because we have the best universities? Because we have the best farmland in the world? The phrase is undefined, just waiting for an eloquent speaker, though none springs to mind. Someone who can frame a slogan as something meaningful. Yes, we know what “great” means.
It means we honor our promises to our allies.
We develop public-private-union partnerships to reinvigorate American industry in ways that are environmentally benign and meaningful to the workers.
We don’t let any one or two people hog the whole pie: somehow or other, whether a flat tax or a graduated income tax, we have to realize that no rich person will leave this beautiful country because it is getting its fiscal house back in order.
We realize that we have immigration laws and that people are right to expect adherence to these laws.
We plan for a future with no internal combustion engines and the cathartic effect it will have on many states, many workers.
We make sure everyone has affordable health care and a decent retirement income.
You want to make America great again? Let’s steal the damn slogan and make it our own. We have a vision. It’s better than theirs — oh, and, umm….what exactly IS their vision?