Make America Great Again - MAGA Unmasked

Written on:  October 17, 2020

We the People of the United States (WtP, We, Us, Our, etc.) have provided a model of democracy for the world to follow for more than 244 years.  Never have Our democratic principles been put to the test as thoroughly as they have over the past four years.

I have watched America undergo some pretty significant changes over these past four years.  As I think back to what was happening four years ago, I am struck by the catch phrase used by Donald Trump and his Trumpers in their effort to defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential Election.  The phrase then was “Make America Great Again” (MAGA).  As the years have passed, I have been vigilantly trying to figure out to which specific era Trump was trying to return Us, which era of America was the greatest in his mind.  The only answers I have been able to come up with that matched my observations during these years of Trump were the early 1860s, the late 1910s, or the late 1950s to early 1960s.

As I have often done over these four years of Trump’s Presidency, I was responding this morning to something he recently wrote on Twitter, and I had an epiphany.  Trump wasn’t intending to bring America back to some great point in the long-ago past.  He was working to destroy America now to make Us realize that We were taking America’s greatness for granted.  America was the great Country it had grown to become, but cracks in that greatness were beginning to appear and We need to act now to prevent a total collapse.

How did We get to this point in Our history?

In 2008, America demonstrated to the world the greatness We had achieved when We elected our first non-Caucasian President.  The many successes of the Melting Pot that combined the best of all races and cultures into one, blended society was on full display, shining across the globe for all the world to witness.

Among the promises of the 2008 Presidential campaign was the need for all Americans to have health care coverage.  As expected, the Democrats and Republicans had very different ideas as to how to resolve the health care deficiencies in America.  However, along with winning the Presidency, the Democrats also won control of both Houses of Congress and held all the cards.  As popularized by Stan Lee in the Spider-Man comics, “With great power comes great responsibility.”  Abuse of that power by the Democrats in Congress sparked a Second Civil War, pitting Republicans against Democrats with the sole objective of each side being nothing more than to inflict pain on the other (war).

The first shot fired in this modern Civil War came on March 23, 2010, when the Democrats utilized its power and some unprincipled maneuvering to force the Affordable Care Act through with zero support from Republicans. The United States desperately needed a health care system that covered all Americans, but the cost of forcing it through in such a partisan manner has been very high.

So, what happened in 2010?  The Affordable Health Care for America Act was passed by the House of Representatives on November 11, 2009 and passed to the Senate where Democrats had acquired a filibuster-proof majority with Senator Arlen Specter’s switch to the Democratic Party in April 2009.  The Senate went on to pass the Bill on December 24, 2009 with no Republican Senators voting in favor.

On January 19, 2010, a Republican was elected to replace Ted Kennedy, the recently deceased Democratic Senator from Massachusetts.  With that election, the Democrats lost their filibuster-proof majority.  In order to avoid the reconciliation process that occurs whenever a Senate Bill differs from a House Bill, the House opted to pass the Senate Bill approved by the Senate on Christmas Eve rather than face the filibuster that would have occurred during reconciliation.  The agreement in the House to pass the Senate version came with a promise to fix the objectionable components of the Senate Bill after it became law.

In the 2012 Election, the Republicans gained enough Senate seats to take Senate control away from the Democrats.  Rather than lead the Republican Party in an attempt to work with President Obama during his second term in Office, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky opted instead to dig his heels in and block every legislative attempt the Democrats tried to put forth from 2013 – 2017, eventually earning himself the nickname of Grim Reaper.

The Civil War between the Democrats and Republicans set up the Perfect Storm for Donald Trump to be elected President in November 2016 using his infamous slogan, “Make America Great Again” or MAGA.  From January 20, 2017 through today, Trump has worked to bring more misery to Americans than We have experienced since at least the Vietnam War era.  He gave a voice to the tens of millions of white racists (now proclaiming themselves Trumpers) occupying the right wing of the Republican Party.  Trump catering exclusively to the Trumpers led to the splintering of the former Republican Party that is likely to never repair itself.

With the Republican Party now split between Trumpers and a number of coalitions that are publicly denouncing Trumpism, including formalized groups such as The Lincoln Project, Republican Voters Against Trump, and 43 Alumni for Joe Biden, Trump is once again using his MAGA slogan to keep his Trumpers engaged with him.  He was elected in 2016 to MAGA, so why is he reusing the slogan for 2020?

With 17 days until the Election of November 3, 2020 Election, I feel as though I have finally figured out how Trump might actually make America great again.  Through his overt attempts to destroy everything about Us that is American, Trump has forced Us to reunite Our liberal and conservative citizens in a common fight against racism and fascism.  From this experience, he has given Us the opportunity to come together and fight to avoid the fate that befell Germany in the 1930s.