Make America Great Again Question Mark

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

"Brand America Corking Again."

The 4 words that would help propel Donald Trump to the White Business 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.

Information technology happened on November. 7, 2012, the day after Mitt Romney lost what had been presumed to exist a winnable race against President Obama. Republicans were spiraling into an identity crunch, one that had some wondering whether a GOP president would ever sit in the Oval Part again.

But on the 26th flooring of a gold Manhattan tower that bears his proper noun, Trump was coming to the conclusion that his own moment was at hand.

And in typical manner, the first affair he thought near was how to brand it.

One later another, phrases popped into his head. "We Will Make America Neat." That one did not have the right ring. Then, "Make America Great." But that sounded like a slight to the country.

And so, it hit him: "Brand America Swell Once more."

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

(Alice Li/The Washington Post)

Five days later, Trump signed an awarding with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Function, in which he asked for exclusive rights to use "Make America Great Once more" for "political action committee services, namely, promoting public awareness of political bug 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 establishment was convinced, the GOP would take to sand off its edges, get kinder and more than inclusive. "Make America Great Again" was divisive and backward-looking. It made no nod to multifariousness or civility or progress.

It sounded like a death wish.

Merely Trump had seen something unlike 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's at the border, whether it's security, whether it's law and social club or lack of law and order. So, of course, you lot get to trade, and I said to myself, 'What would be practiced?' I was sitting at my desk, where I am right now, and I said, 'Brand America Peachy Again.' "

Democrats slammed it.

"If yous're looking for someone to say what is wrong with America, I'm non your candidate. I remember there is more right than incorrect," Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton said. "I don't think nosotros have to make America great. I think we have to make America greater."

Her hubby, former president Bill Clinton, went so far as to declare information technology a racist dog whistle.

"I'thousand really old plenty to remember the good old days, and they weren't all that practiced in many ways," he said at a rally in Orlando. "That message where 'I'll requite you America groovy once again' is if you're a white Southerner, you know exactly what it means, don't you?"

The slogan itself was not entirely original. Ronald Reagan and George H.Westward. Bush had used "Permit's Make America Great Again" in their 1980 campaign — a fact that Trump maintained he did not know until nigh a yr ago.

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

His decision to claim legal buying reflected a businessman'south mind-prepare. "I think I'm somebody that understands marketing," Trump said.

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

The trademark became effective on July 14, 2015, a month later Trump formally announced his campaign 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 aggressive in protecting his idea. When his GOP primary rivals Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker began tucking "make America great over again" into their own speeches, Trump's lawyers fired off stop-and-desist letters.

Trump's reddish trucker cap featuring the Make America Neat Once again slogan was ubiquitious during the campaign. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

More than just a hat

Trump was an impulsive and erratic candidate who ran a chaotic campaign. The one abiding, it oft seemed, was "Make America Neat Once more."

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

There were plenty of snickers when his Federal Ballot Commission filings showed that his campaign was spending more on "Make America Bully Again" trucker caps than on polling, political consultants, staff or television ads.

"An appropriate icon for his failing campaign," the Washington Examiner'due south Philip Wegmann wrote in late October. "The millions of hats will make excellent keepsakes for those who thought his populist blowing could overcome Clinton'due south unimaginative and conventional simply 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 Manner section — during Fashion Calendar week, no less.

"In the Fashion department, information technology was the ornament — what do you call that? — an accessory. They said the accessory of the year. Y'all know the lid. Y'all'd see people going to the fanciest balls at the Waldorf Astoria wearing red hats," he exulted.

Equally is often the example, Trump'south clarification is more than a footling hyperbolic. What the newspaper really wrote was that the "old-school" caps had become "the ironic must-accept fashion accessory of the summer," 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 past wearing i during a July 2022 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 nosotros sell? Does anyone know? Millions!" Trump said in the interview.

"It was copied, unfortunately. It was knocked off by 10 to ane. It was knocked off past others. But it was a slogan, and every time somebody buys one, that'southward an advertisement."

However many hats he sold, what cannot be disputed is that "Brand America Great Again" caught on. It was the most constructive kind of political message, bite-sized and visceral.

"It really inspired me," Trump said, "because to me, information technology meant jobs. It meant industry, and meant military strength. It meant taking care of our veterans. It meant and so much."

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

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

Her strategists considered 85 possibilities for a general-election 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'due south chief political strategist. Trump "understood the market that he was trying to reach. Y'all 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 upwardly 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 service, Trump shared a flake of news: He already has decided on his slogan for a reelection bid in 2020.

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

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

Two minutes afterward, ane arrived.

"Volition you trademark and register, if you would, if you like it — I remember I like it, correct? Do this: 'Keep America Great,' with an exclamation betoken. With and without an exclamation. 'Continue America Slap-up,' " Trump said.

"Got it," the lawyer replied.

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

"I never idea I'd be giving [you] my expression for four years [from now]," he said. "But I am and then confident that we are going to be, it is going to be so amazing. It's the only reason I requite it to you. If I was, similar, ambiguous about it, if I wasn't certain about what is going to happen — the country is going to be keen."

All of which raises the questions: How tin greatness be measured and sensed? What does information technology fifty-fifty mean?

"Being a bang-up president has to do with a lot of things, merely 1 of them is being a great 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 military.

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

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

The president-elect has an ambitious to-do list for the adjacent four years: building stronger borders, keeping the country safe against terrorism, producing more jobs, repealing the Affordable Care Act, replacing information technology with something meliorate, promoting excellence in engineering and science, investing in modern infrastructure.

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

"I recollect they take to feel it," Trump acknowledged. "Being a cheerleader or a salesman for the country is very important, but you even so take to produce the results."

"Honestly, you lot oasis't seen annihilation nevertheless. Await till you run into what happens, starting next Monday," he said. "A lot of things are going to happen. Great things."

Read more:

Trump'south Cabinet nominees continue contradicting him

Surprisingly, Trump inauguration shapes upwardly to exist a relatively easygoing matter

'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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