Doujinshi Donald Trump Make America Great Again

President-elect Donald Trump poses for a portrait at Trump Belfry on Jan. 17. (Matt McClain/The Washington Mail)

"Make America Great Again."

The four words that would help propel Donald Trump to the White Firm were an inspiration built-in years before, when hardly anyone but Trump himself could imagine him taking the oath of office as the 45th president of the United states.

It happened on Nov. 7, 2012, the solar day after Mitt Romney lost what had been presumed to be a winnable race against 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 over again.

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

And in typical fashion, the outset affair he thought about was how to brand it.

One after another, phrases popped into his head. "Nosotros Will Brand America Great." That ane did non have the correct ring. Then, "Brand America Great." Just that sounded like a slight to the country.

And then, it striking him: "Brand America Bully Again."

"I said, 'That is and then good.' I wrote it downwardly," Trump recalled in an interview. "I went to my lawyers. I accept a lot of lawyers in-house. We have many lawyers. I have got guys that handle this stuff. I said, 'See if you tin take this registered and trademarked.' "

(Alice Li/The Washington Postal service)

Five days later, Trump signed an awarding with the U.Southward. Patent and Trademark Function, in which he asked for exclusive rights to utilize "Make America Cracking 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 confronting 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 take to sand off its edges, become kinder and more inclusive. "Make America Great Again" was divisive and backward-looking. It made no nod to diversity or civility or progress.

It sounded like a decease 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 land had, and whether it'south at the border, whether it's security, whether information technology'southward law and order or lack of law and order. Then, of course, yous become to trade, and I said to myself, 'What would be good?' I was sitting at my desk, where I am right at present, and I said, 'Brand America Swell Again.' "

Democrats slammed it.

"If you lot're looking for someone to say what is wrong with America, I'yard not your candidate. I recall there is more correct than incorrect," Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton said. "I don't recollect we have to make America slap-up. I think nosotros accept to brand America greater."

Her hubby, erstwhile president Bill Clinton, went so far every bit to declare it a racist dog whistle.

"I'thou actually old plenty to remember the good former days, and they weren't all that good in many means," he said at a rally in Orlando. "That message where 'I'll give you America great again' is if you're a white Southerner, you know exactly what it means, don't you?"

The slogan itself was non entirely original. Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush had used "Let's Make America Great Once again" in their 1980 entrada — 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 decision to claim legal buying reflected a businessman'due south mind-set. "I think I'm somebody that understands marketing," Trump said.

Trump Organization lawyer Alan Garten said Trump holds up of 800 trademarks in more than 80 countries.

The trademark became effective on July 14, 2015, a month after Trump formally announced his campaign and met the legal requirement that he was really using it for the purposes spelled out in his application.

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

Trump'southward red trucker cap featuring the Make America Peachy Over again slogan was ubiquitious during the entrada. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

More than than just a hat

Trump was an impulsive and erratic candidate who ran a chaotic campaign. The 1 constant, information technology oft seemed, was "Make America Great Over again."

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

There were plenty of snickers when his Federal Election Commission filings showed that his campaign was spending more on "Make America Great Over again" trucker caps than on polling, political consultants, staff or tv set ads.

"An appropriate icon for his declining entrada," the Washington Examiner's Philip Wegmann wrote in late Oct. "The millions of hats will make fantabulous keepsakes for those who thought his populist bravado could overcome Clinton'south unimaginative and conventional but well-oiled political automobile."

Trump saw the hats as a fundraising and advertizement vehicle. He was thrilled when his entrada headgear landed in the New York Times Style section — during Way Week, no less.

"In the Fashion section, it was the ornament — what do you call that? — an accompaniment. They said the accompaniment of the year. You know the hat. You'd see people going to the fanciest balls at the Waldorf Astoria wearing red hats," he exulted.

Equally is frequently the case, Trump's description is more than a little hyperbolic. What the paper actually wrote was that the "onetime-schoolhouse" caps had go "the ironic must-have 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 one during a July 2015 trip to the Mexican edge — 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. It was knocked off by 10 to one. It was knocked off by others. Just it was a slogan, and every time somebody buys one, that's an advertizement."

All the same many hats he sold, what cannot exist disputed is that "Make America Neat Again" caught on. Information technology was the most constructive kind of political message, bite-sized and visceral.

"It actually inspired me," Trump said, "because to me, it meant jobs. It meant manufacture, and meant armed forces strength. It meant taking intendance of our veterans. It meant then much."

[When was America great? Information technology depends on who you are.]

That kind of mission statement was something that Clinton'south campaign — for all its poll testing and high-priced communication from Madison Avenue — struggled to clear.

Her strategists considered 85 possibilities for a general-ballot campaign slogan before settling on "Stronger Together," according to an email from the business relationship of entrada chairman John Podesta that was published by WikiLeaks.

What they were upwards confronting was nothing short of "a marketing genius," said David Axelrod, who had been Obama's chief political strategist. Trump "understood the marketplace that he was trying to achieve. You can't deny him that. He was very focused from the start 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 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 ready?" he said. " 'Keep America Smashing,' assertion signal."

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

Two minutes afterwards, ane arrived.

"Volition you lot trademark and register, if you would, if yous like it — I call back I similar information technology, right? Do this: 'Keep America Groovy,' with an exclamation point. With and without an assertion. 'Keep America Great,' " Trump said.

"Got it," the lawyer replied.

That fleck of business out of the way, Trump returned to the interview.

"I never thought I'd be giving [y'all] my expression for iv years [from now]," he said. "Only I am so confident that we are going to exist, it is going to be so amazing. It'south the but reason I give it to you. If I was, like, cryptic about it, if I wasn't sure virtually what is going to happen — the country is going to be great."

All of which raises the questions: How tin can greatness exist measured and sensed? What does it fifty-fifty mean?

"Being a neat president has to do with a lot of things, merely 1 of them is beingness a corking cheerleader for the country," Trump said. "And we're going to show the people as nosotros build upwardly our military, we're going to display our armed forces.

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

But Trump acknowledged that slogans and showmanship will non exist the ultimate tests of whether the country is "cracking again."

The president-elect has an ambitious to-do list for the adjacent 4 years: building stronger borders, keeping the state safe against terrorism, producing more jobs, repealing the Affordable Care Act, replacing it with something better, promoting excellence in engineering and scientific discipline, investing in modern infrastructure.

Ultimately, it will exist up to the people for whom "Brand America Dandy Once again" was a covenant, not a slogan, to decide whether the 45th president has lived upwards to his promise.

"I remember they take to feel it," Trump acknowledged. "Being a cheerleader or a salesman for the country is very of import, but you nevertheless have to produce the results."

"Honestly, you haven't seen annihilation even so. Wait till y'all come across what happens, starting next Monday," he said. "A lot of things are going to happen. Groovy things."

Read more:

Trump'southward Cabinet nominees go along contradicting him

Surprisingly, Trump inauguration shapes upwards to exist a relatively depression-central affair

'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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