Make America Great Again was a simple and effective campaign rallying cry

The argument

Proponents of this explanation focus on the work done by the campaign's central slogan. "Make America Great Again" functioned, on this view, less as a policy statement than as a diagnosis many voters already held and had not heard articulated. Its premise was that America's greatest time lay in the past and that the country had been in decline in recent decades, a decline attributed to deindustrialisation and to international competition. For citizens who believed the greatness of their country had been lost, the slogan did not need to argue that premise; it assumed it, and in assuming it confirmed an impression its audience had formed from their own circumstances. Supporters of the position emphasise the slogan's form as much as its content. It was simple and memorable, which meant it survived repetition and travelled without distortion, and it sounded reassuringly patriotic rather than critical — a complaint about the country's present that was nonetheless framed as loyalty to the country itself. That combination allowed the MAGA slogan to serve as a beacon of hope for dissatisfied United States citizens while committing to nothing concrete that could be tested. Its reach was correspondingly broad in a particular way: it appealed to optimists, who heard in it the prospect of restoration, and equally to resentful voters who wished to go back to previous times, since recalling a happier time in American history serves both dispositions at once. The conclusion drawn is that the rallying cry worked because it named a feeling rather than proposing a programme. Trump's supporters voted for him because they believed he would restore the country to its former greatness, and what recommended him was that his central message recognised a loss they took to have occurred. On this account the 2016 result is best explained not by the particulars of his platform but by the fact that his campaign spoke directly to voters' anxieties about their country's decline.

Context

The "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) slogan used in US politics was popularised by Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign. Variations of the campaign phrase have also been used by Ronald Reagan in 1980 (“Let’s Make America Great Again”) and Bill Clinton in 1992. In his book, Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again, Trump frames his slogan and agenda as that of “American exceptionalism”. The ideology of American exceptionalism argues that the United States is unique from all other nations because it is based on the principles of liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, republicanism, democracy, and laissez-faire economics. Trump believed that America was no longer as great as it used to be and that through his leadership, he would be able to restore it to its former glory.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The MAGA slogan has been accused of being "tone deaf" and alienating marginal communities including ethnic minority groups. For such communities, America has never been "great", and has improved massively for these groups in recent decades in terms of employment, home ownership, education and lowering crime rates.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise slides from a claim about the slogan to a claim about the country. That the message was memorable and patriotic is one thing; that American greatness had in fact declined through deindustrialisation is a separate contention, offered without evidence and disputed by the counter-argument, which notes that conditions improved over the same period for groups previously excluded. [Rejecting P2] Even granting the slogan's appeal, the conclusion overreaches. The question asks why Americans voted as they did, and an effective slogan is compatible with all three positions here — voters may have responded to the promises it stood for, or to their dislike of the alternative, and this argument offers no way to distinguish them. "Appealed to optimists as well as to resentful voters" also concedes that the same words served opposite motives, which makes the slogan a poor instrument for identifying any single one.