Trump Registers Make America Great Again
President-elect Donald Trump poses for a portrait at Trump Tower on January. 17. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
"Brand America Neat Again."
The four words that would help propel Donald Trump to the White House were an inspiration born years earlier, when hardly anyone merely Trump himself could imagine him taking the oath of office equally the 45th president of the United states.
It happened on Nov. 7, 2012, the day after Mitt 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 ever sit in the Oval Office once more.
Merely 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 mitt.
And in typical fashion, the showtime thing he idea about was how to brand it.
One after another, phrases popped into his head. "We Volition Make America Great." That one did non accept the correct band. And so, "Make America Great." But that sounded like a slight to the country.
And then, information technology striking him: "Brand America Slap-up Over again."
"I said, 'That is and then good.' I wrote information technology downwards," Trump recalled in an interview. "I went to my lawyers. I have a lot of lawyers in-house. We take many lawyers. I have got guys that handle this stuff. I said, 'See if you can have this registered and trademarked.' "
(Alice Li/The Washington Post)
Five days later, Trump signed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, in which he asked for exclusive rights to use "Make America Great Again" 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 contrary," 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 Neat Again" was divisive and astern-looking. It made no nod to variety or civility or progress.
It sounded like a decease wish.
Simply Trump had seen something different in the state, 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 state had, and whether it'due south at the border, whether information technology's security, whether it's law and society or lack of constabulary and order. Then, of course, you lot get to trade, 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 Nifty Again.' "
Democrats slammed it.
"If you're looking for someone to say what is wrong with America, I'thou non your candidate. I think in that location is more right than wrong," Autonomous nominee Hillary Clinton said. "I don't retrieve we have to brand America great. I think nosotros have to make America greater."
Her husband, former president Bill Clinton, went so far equally to declare it a racist dog whistle.
"I'm actually old plenty to remember the good old days, and they weren't all that good in many ways," he said at a rally in Orlando. "That message where 'I'll give y'all America not bad again' is if you're a white Southerner, you lot know exactly what it means, don't y'all?"
The slogan itself was not entirely original. Ronald Reagan and George H.Due west. Bush-league had used "Let's Make America Swell Again" in their 1980 campaign — a fact that Trump maintained he did not know until about a year ago.
"But he didn't trademark it," Trump said of Reagan.
His determination to claim legal ownership reflected a businessman'south mind-ready. "I retrieve I'm somebody that understands marketing," Trump said.
Trump Arrangement lawyer Alan Garten said Trump holds upwardly of 800 trademarks in more than fourscore countries.
The trademark became effective on July 14, 2015, a month after Trump formally appear his campaign and met the legal requirement that he was actually using it for the purposes spelled out in his awarding.
Having won the trademark, Trump was aggressive in protecting his idea. When his GOP master rivals Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker began tucking "make America cracking again" into their own speeches, Trump's lawyers fired off cease-and-desist messages.
Trump's red trucker cap featuring the Brand America Great Once again slogan was ubiquitious during the campaign. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
More than just a chapeau
Trump was an impulsive and erratic candidate who ran a chaotic entrada. The 1 constant, it frequently seemed, was "Make America Bully Once again."
"I didn't know it was going to grab on similar it did. Information technology'southward been amazing," Trump said. "The hat, I gauge, is the biggest symbol, wouldn't you lot say?"
At that place were plenty of snickers when his Federal Election Commission filings showed that his campaign was spending more than on "Make 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's Philip Wegmann wrote in late October. "The millions of hats will make splendid keepsakes for those who thought his populist bravado could overcome Clinton'south unimaginative and conventional only well-oiled political machine."
Trump saw the hats equally a fundraising and advertising vehicle. He was thrilled when his campaign headgear landed in the New York Times Style section — during Fashion Week, no less.
"In the Manner section, it was the ornamentation — what do you call that? — an accessory. They said the accessory of the year. Y'all know the hat. You'd see people going to the fanciest assurance at the Waldorf Astoria wearing red hats," he exulted.
Every bit is often the case, Trump's clarification is more than than a little hyperbolic. What the newspaper actually wrote was that the "old-school" caps had become "the ironic must-have fashion accessory of the summer," favored by hipsters for their "uncanny ability to capture the current absurdist political moment."
None of which fazed the celebrity 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 up. Trump had designed them himself, he said. The basic models sold through his entrada website were priced at $25.
"How many did we sell? Does anyone know? Millions!" Trump said in the interview.
"It was copied, unfortunately. It was knocked off by x to i. It was knocked off past others. Simply it was a slogan, and every fourth dimension somebody buys one, that'southward an advertisement."
Notwithstanding many hats he sold, what cannot exist disputed is that "Make America Great Again" defenseless on. It was the most effective kind of political message, bite-sized and visceral.
"It actually inspired me," Trump said, "considering to me, it meant jobs. Information technology meant industry, and meant military force. It meant taking intendance of our veterans. It meant and so much."
[When was America slap-up? It depends on who you are.]
That kind of mission statement was something that Clinton'southward campaign — for all its poll testing and high-priced advice from Madison Artery — struggled to articulate.
Her strategists considered 85 possibilities for a general-ballot entrada slogan before settling on "Stronger Together," according to an electronic mail from the account of campaign chairman John Podesta that was published by WikiLeaks.
What they were upwardly against was naught short of "a marketing genius," said David Axelrod, who had been Obama's chief political strategist. Trump "understood the market that he was trying to reach. You can't deny him that. He was very focused from the outset on who he was talking to."
While Clinton carried the popular vote, Trump lined upward 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 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. " 'Go on America Groovy,' exclamation betoken."
"Become me my lawyer!" the president-elect shouted.
Two minutes later, one arrived.
"Will you trademark and register, if y'all would, if you like it — I think I similar it, right? Practise this: 'Go along America Peachy,' with an exclamation point. With and without an assertion. 'Continue America Great,' " Trump said.
"Got it," the lawyer replied.
That bit of business out of the way, Trump returned to the interview.
"I never idea I'd exist giving [y'all] my expression for four years [from now]," he said. "But I am and so confident that we are going to be, it is going to exist and then amazing. It's the only reason I give information technology to you lot. If I was, like, cryptic about information technology, if I wasn't sure about 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 even mean?
"Existence a great president has to do with a lot of things, simply i of them is being a smashing cheerleader for the country," Trump said. "And nosotros're going to show the people as we build up our war machine, we're going to display our military.
"That military may come marching down Pennsylvania Avenue. That military machine may exist flying over New York City and Washington, D.C., for parades. I mean, we're going to be showing our military," he added.
Just Trump acknowledged that slogans and showmanship will non be the ultimate tests of whether the country is "great once again."
The president-elect has an ambitious to-practise list for the adjacent 4 years: building stronger borders, keeping the country safe against terrorism, producing more than jobs, repealing the Affordable Care Act, replacing information technology with something better, promoting excellence in technology and scientific discipline, investing in modern infrastructure.
Ultimately, information technology will be up to the people for whom "Make America Great Again" was a covenant, not a slogan, to decide whether the 45th president has lived upward to his promise.
"I think they have to experience it," Trump acknowledged. "Being a cheerleader or a salesman for the land is very important, but you lot still take to produce the results."
"Honestly, you haven't seen anything yet. Wait till yous come across what happens, starting adjacent Mon," he said. "A lot of things are going to happen. Great things."
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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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