Make America Great Again Political Ads
President-elect Donald Trump poses for a portrait at Trump Tower on Jan. 17. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
"Brand America Keen Again."
The four words that would assist propel Donald Trump to the White House were an inspiration born years before, when inappreciably anyone but Trump himself could imagine him taking the adjuration of office as the 45th president of the United States.
It happened on Nov. 7, 2012, the day after Mitt Romney lost what had been presumed to exist a winnable race confronting President Obama. Republicans were spiraling into an identity crisis, one that had some wondering whether a GOP president would ever sit in the Oval Role again.
But on the 26th flooring of a golden Manhattan belfry that bears his name, Trump was coming to the conclusion that his own moment was at paw.
And in typical fashion, the beginning thing he thought about was how to make information technology.
One after another, phrases popped into his caput. "We Will Make America Great." That one did not have the right band. Then, "Make America Groovy." But that sounded like a slight to the state.
And and then, it hit him: "Make America Keen Again."
"I said, 'That is so good.' I wrote it downwardly," Trump recalled in an interview. "I went to my lawyers. I accept a lot of lawyers in-house. Nosotros have many lawyers. I have got guys that handle this stuff. I said, 'Meet if y'all can have this registered and trademarked.' "
(Alice Li/The Washington Post)
Five days later, Trump signed an application with the U.South. Patent and Trademark Office, in which he asked for exclusive rights to use "Make America Great Again" for "political activeness committee services, namely, promoting public sensation of political issues 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 time — in fact, it was "much the opposite," Trump said.
To save itself, the Republican establishment was convinced, the GOP would have to sand off its edges, become kinder and more inclusive. "Make America Great Over again" was divisive and backward-looking. It made no nod to diversity or civility or progress.
It sounded like a death wish.
But Trump had seen something different 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 illness our country had, and whether it's at the border, whether it'south security, whether it's law and order or lack of law and gild. Then, of course, you get to merchandise, and I said to myself, 'What would exist good?' I was sitting at my desk, where I am right at present, and I said, 'Make America Smashing Again.' "
Democrats slammed it.
"If yous're looking for someone to say what is wrong with America, I'm not your candidate. I recollect there is more than right than wrong," Autonomous nominee Hillary Clinton said. "I don't think nosotros have to make America great. I think we accept to make America greater."
Her husband, former president Bill Clinton, went and so far as to declare it a racist dog whistle.
"I'one thousand actually erstwhile plenty to think the proficient sometime days, and they weren't all that good in many ways," he said at a rally in Orlando. "That message where 'I'll give you America great once more' 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 "Allow's Brand America Great Again" in their 1980 campaign — a fact that Trump maintained he did not know until almost a twelvemonth ago.
"Simply he didn't trademark information technology," Trump said of Reagan.
His decision to claim legal ownership reflected a businessman'due south mind-set. "I call back I'm somebody that understands marketing," Trump said.
Trump Organization lawyer Alan Garten said Trump holds upward of 800 trademarks in more than eighty countries.
The trademark became effective on July fourteen, 2015, a month after Trump formally appear his campaign and met the legal requirement that he was actually using information technology for the purposes spelled out in his application.
Having won the trademark, Trump was aggressive in protecting his idea. When his GOP principal rivals Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker began tucking "make America keen once again" into their own speeches, Trump's lawyers fired off end-and-desist messages.
Trump's red trucker cap featuring the Make America Great Again slogan was ubiquitious during the campaign. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
More than than simply a hat
Trump was an impulsive and erratic candidate who ran a cluttered campaign. The one constant, it often seemed, was "Make America Great Once again."
"I didn't know it was going to grab on like it did. Information technology's been amazing," Trump said. "The lid, I guess, is the biggest symbol, wouldn't yous say?"
There were enough of snickers when his Federal Ballot Commission filings showed that his campaign was spending more on "Brand America Not bad Again" trucker caps than on polling, political consultants, staff or television ads.
"An appropriate icon for his failing entrada," the Washington Examiner'due south Philip Wegmann wrote in late October. "The millions of hats will make first-class keepsakes for those who thought his populist bravado could overcome Clinton's unimaginative and conventional just well-oiled political motorcar."
Trump saw the hats every bit a fundraising and advertising vehicle. He was thrilled when his entrada headgear landed in the New York Times Way section — during Manner Week, no less.
"In the Style section, it was the ornament — what do you lot call that? — an accessory. They said the accompaniment of the year. You know the chapeau. You'd see people going to the fanciest balls at the Waldorf Astoria wearing red hats," he exulted.
As is often the case, Trump's description is more than a little hyperbolic. What the paper actually wrote was that the "erstwhile-school" caps had become "the ironic must-take fashion accessory of the summer," favored by hipsters for their "uncanny power to capture the current absurdist political moment."
None of which fazed the celebrity billionaire who had debuted the hats past wearing ane during a July 2015 trip to the Mexican border — or the legions of supporters who raced to snap them upwardly. Trump had designed them himself, he said. The basic models sold through his campaign 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 i. It was knocked off by others. But it was a slogan, and every fourth dimension somebody buys one, that's an advertizing."
All the same many hats he sold, what cannot exist disputed is that "Make America Swell Again" caught on. It was the most effective kind of political bulletin, seize with teeth-sized and visceral.
"Information technology actually 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. Information technology meant then much."
[When was America great? Information technology depends on who you are.]
That kind of mission statement was something that Clinton's entrada — for all its poll testing and high-priced advice from Madison Avenue — struggled to articulate.
Her strategists considered 85 possibilities for a general-election entrada slogan before settling on "Stronger Together," according to an email from the account of campaign chairman John Podesta that was published by WikiLeaks.
What they were up against was nothing 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 accomplish. You can't deny him that. He was very focused from the offset on who he was talking to."
While Clinton carried the popular vote, Trump lined up the states he needed to win what mattered: the electoral higher.
"In terms of galvanizing the marketplace that he was talking to," Axelrod said, "he did it single-mindedly and ingeniously."
Thinking reelection
Halfway through his interview with The Washington Post, Trump shared a bit of news: He already has decided on his slogan for a reelection bid in 2020.
"Are you lot fix?" he said. " 'Continue America Nifty,' exclamation point."
"Get me my lawyer!" the president-elect shouted.
Two minutes later, one arrived.
"Volition you trademark and register, if you would, if you like information technology — I think I like it, correct? Practice this: 'Keep America Cracking,' with an assertion signal. With and without an assertion. 'Keep America Neat,' " Trump said.
"Got it," the lawyer replied.
That bit of business concern out of the mode, Trump returned to the interview.
"I never thought I'd be giving [you] my expression for four years [from at present]," he said. "But I am and then confident that nosotros are going to be, it is going to be so amazing. It's the just reason I give it to y'all. If I was, like, ambiguous about it, if I wasn't sure nearly what is going to happen — the country is going to be great."
All of which raises the questions: How can greatness exist measured and sensed? What does it even mean?
"Beingness a slap-up president has to do with a lot of things, but one of them is being a great cheerleader for the state," Trump said. "And we're going to show the people equally we build upwards our war machine, nosotros're going to brandish our military.
"That military may come marching down Pennsylvania Artery. That military may be flying over New York City and Washington, D.C., for parades. I mean, we're going to be showing our military machine," he added.
But Trump acknowledged that slogans and showmanship volition not be the ultimate tests of whether the country is "great again."
The president-elect has an aggressive to-do list for the side by side four years: building stronger borders, keeping the country prophylactic against terrorism, producing more than jobs, repealing the Affordable Care Act, replacing it with something amend, promoting excellence in engineering and science, investing in modern infrastructure.
Ultimately, it volition be up to the people for whom "Make America Great Once more" was a covenant, not a slogan, to decide whether the 45th president has lived upward to his promise.
"I call up they have to feel it," Trump acknowledged. "Existence a cheerleader or a salesman for the country is very important, but you still take to produce the results."
"Honestly, you haven't seen annihilation nonetheless. Look till you encounter what happens, starting side by side Monday," he said. "A lot of things are going to happen. Dandy things."
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Alice Crites contributed to this report.
Nosotros are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Plan, an affiliate advertising plan designed to provide a means for usa to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
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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