Donald Trump We Will Make America Great Again

President-elect Donald Trump poses for a portrait at Trump Tower on January. 17. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

"Make America Great Again."

The four words that would aid propel Donald Trump to the White House were an inspiration built-in years before, when hardly anyone just Trump himself could imagine him taking the oath of part equally the 45th president of the The states.

Information technology happened on Nov. 7, 2012, the day later Manus Romney lost what had been presumed to be a winnable race confronting President Obama. Republicans were spiraling into an identity crisis, one that had some wondering whether a GOP president would e'er sit in the Oval Office over again.

But on the 26th floor of a golden Manhattan tower that bears his name, Trump was coming to the conclusion that his own moment was at hand.

And in typical manner, the first matter he thought about was how to make information technology.

1 after another, phrases popped into his head. "We Will Make America Great." That one did non accept the right band. And so, "Make America Great." But that sounded similar a slight to the country.

And then, it hit him: "Make America Great Again."

"I said, 'That is so proficient.' I wrote it down," Trump recalled in an interview. "I went to my lawyers. I have a lot of lawyers in-house. We have many lawyers. I have got guys that handle this stuff. I said, 'See if y'all tin can take this registered and trademarked.' "

(Alice Li/The Washington Post)

Five days later on, Trump signed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Function, in which he asked for exclusive rights to utilize "Make America Smashing Once more" for "political action 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 institution was convinced, the GOP would accept to sand off its edges, become kinder and more inclusive. "Brand America Keen Over again" was divisive and backward-looking. It made no nod to diversity or civility or progress.

It sounded like a decease wish.

Simply Trump had seen something unlike in the country, and in the daily lives of its struggling citizens.

"I felt that jobs were pain," he said. "I looked at the many types of illness our country had, and whether it'southward at the border, whether it's security, whether information technology's law and order or lack of constabulary and order. Then, of grade, you get to merchandise, and I said to myself, 'What would be good?' I was sitting at my desk, where I am right now, and I said, 'Make America Not bad Once again.' "

Democrats slammed it.

"If you're looking for someone to say what is wrong with America, I'm not your candidate. I recollect in that location is more correct than wrong," Autonomous nominee Hillary Clinton said. "I don't recollect we have to brand America great. I think we have to make America greater."

Her husband, onetime president Bill Clinton, went then far as to declare information technology a racist dog whistle.

"I'thousand really old enough to remember the good old days, and they weren't all that adept in many ways," he said at a rally in Orlando. "That message where 'I'll give you lot America great again' is if you're a white Southerner, you know exactly what information technology means, don't you?"

The slogan itself was not entirely original. Ronald Reagan and George H.West. Bush had used "Let's Make America Corking Again" in their 1980 campaign — a fact that Trump maintained he did not know until nearly a year ago.

"But he didn't trademark it," Trump said of Reagan.

His decision to claim legal ownership reflected a businessman'south mind-fix. "I think I'grand somebody that understands marketing," Trump said.

Trump Arrangement lawyer Alan Garten said Trump holds upwards of 800 trademarks in more than eighty countries.

The trademark became effective on July fourteen, 2015, a month afterward Trump formally announced his entrada and met the legal requirement that he was actually using it for the purposes spelled out in his application.

Having won the trademark, Trump was ambitious in protecting his idea. When his GOP chief rivals Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker began tucking "make America swell over again" into their own speeches, Trump's lawyers fired off finish-and-desist letters.

Trump'south ruby-red trucker cap featuring the Make America Great Again slogan was ubiquitious during the campaign. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Postal service)

More than but a lid

Trump was an impulsive and erratic candidate who ran a chaotic campaign. The 1 constant, it often seemed, was "Make America Groovy Once again."

"I didn't know it was going to catch on like it did. It's been amazing," Trump said. "The hat, I guess, is the biggest symbol, wouldn't yous say?"

At that place were plenty of snickers when his Federal Ballot Commission filings showed that his campaign was spending more on "Brand America Great Again" trucker caps than on polling, political consultants, staff or tv set ads.

"An advisable icon for his failing campaign," the Washington Examiner'due south Philip Wegmann wrote in belatedly October. "The millions of hats volition brand excellent keepsakes for those who thought his populist bravado could overcome Clinton's unimaginative and conventional but well-oiled political machine."

Trump saw the hats as a fundraising and advertising vehicle. He was thrilled when his campaign headgear landed in the New York Times Style section — during Manner Calendar week, no less.

"In the Mode section, it was the ornament — what do yous telephone call that? — an accessory. They said the accessory of the year. You lot know the hat. You'd meet people going to the fanciest balls at the Waldorf Astoria wearing cerise hats," he exulted.

As is often the case, Trump's description is more than than a little hyperbolic. What the newspaper really wrote was that the "quondam-school" caps had become "the ironic must-have fashion accessory of the summertime," favored by hipsters for their "uncanny ability to capture the current absurdist political moment."

None of which fazed the glory billionaire who had debuted the hats by wearing one during a July 2015 trip to the Mexican border — or the legions of supporters who raced to snap them upward. Trump had designed them himself, he said. The basic models sold through his campaign website were priced at $25.

"How many did we sell? Does anyone know? Millions!" Trump said in the interview.

"It was copied, unfortunately. Information technology was knocked off past 10 to one. Information technology was knocked off by others. But it was a slogan, and every fourth dimension somebody buys i, that's an ad."

Nevertheless many hats he sold, what cannot be disputed is that "Brand America Great Again" defenseless on. It was the nigh effective kind of political message, bite-sized and visceral.

"It actually inspired me," Trump said, "because to me, it meant jobs. Information technology meant industry, and meant military strength. Information technology meant taking care of our veterans. It meant and then much."

[When was America great? It depends on who you lot are.]

That kind of mission argument was something that Clinton's entrada — for all its poll testing and loftier-priced advice from Madison Avenue — struggled to articulate.

Her strategists considered 85 possibilities for a general-ballot campaign slogan before settling on "Stronger Together," according to an e-mail 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's master political strategist. Trump "understood the market that he was trying to reach. You can't deny him that. He was very focused from the start on who he was talking to."

While Clinton carried the pop vote, Trump lined upwards the states he needed to win what mattered: the electoral college.

"In terms of galvanizing the market that he was talking to," Axelrod said, "he did it single-mindedly and ingeniously."

Thinking reelection

Halfway through his interview with The Washington Mail, Trump shared a scrap of news: He already has decided on his slogan for a reelection bid in 2020.

"Are you ready?" he said. " 'Keep America Great,' exclamation betoken."

"Become me my lawyer!" the president-elect shouted.

Two minutes later on, i arrived.

"Will you trademark and register, if you would, if you like it — I think I like it, correct? Do this: 'Go along America Neat,' with an exclamation point. With and without an exclamation. 'Go along America Bang-up,' " Trump said.

"Got it," the lawyer replied.

That bit of business organisation out of the style, Trump returned to the interview.

"I never idea I'd exist giving [you] my expression for four years [from at present]," he said. "Merely I am then confident that we are going to exist, it is going to exist so astonishing. Information technology's the only reason I give it to you. If I was, similar, 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 be measured and sensed? What does it fifty-fifty mean?

"Beingness a great president has to do with a lot of things, but one of them is being a peachy cheerleader for the country," Trump said. "And we're going to testify the people as we build up our military, we're going to display our armed services.

"That armed forces may come marching down Pennsylvania Avenue. That war machine may be flight over New York City and Washington, D.C., for parades. I mean, we're going to be showing our military," he added.

Simply Trump acknowledged that slogans and showmanship will not be the ultimate tests of whether the country is "corking again."

The president-elect has an ambitious to-do list for the next four years: edifice stronger borders, keeping the land safe against terrorism, producing more than jobs, repealing the Affordable Care Deed, replacing it with something better, promoting excellence in technology and scientific discipline, investing in modern infrastructure.

Ultimately, it will be up to the people for whom "Make America Peachy Again" was a covenant, non a slogan, to decide whether the 45th president has lived up to his promise.

"I think they have to feel it," Trump acknowledged. "Being a cheerleader or a salesman for the country is very of import, but yous still have to produce the results."

"Honestly, you haven't seen anything yet. Wait till you come across what happens, starting next Monday," he said. "A lot of things are going to happen. Great things."

Read more than:

Trump's Cabinet nominees keep contradicting him

Surprisingly, Trump inauguration shapes up to be a relatively easygoing thing

'Finally. Someone who thinks like me.'

Alice Crites contributed to this report.

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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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