Make America Great Again Kid Interview

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

"Make America Great Once again."

The four words that would help propel Donald Trump to the White House were an inspiration born years before, when hardly anyone merely Trump himself could imagine him taking the oath of part as the 45th president of the U.s.a..

Information technology happened on Nov. seven, 2012, the day subsequently 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 once again.

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

And in typical way, the first thing he thought about was how to brand it.

One after another, phrases popped into his head. "We Will Brand America Great." That 1 did not have the right ring. Then, "Make America Bang-up." Just that sounded like a slight to the land.

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 take a lot of lawyers in-business firm. We have many lawyers. I have got guys that handle this stuff. I said, 'Meet if yous can have this registered and trademarked.' "

(Alice Li/The Washington Mail service)

Five days later, Trump signed an awarding with the U.South. Patent and Trademark Role, in which he asked for exclusive rights to utilise "Brand America Great Once 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, information technology was "much the contrary," Trump said.

To salve itself, the Republican establishment was convinced, the GOP would have to sand off its edges, become kinder and more inclusive. "Make America Bang-up Once more" was divisive and backward-looking. It made no nod to diversity or civility or progress.

It sounded similar 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 state had, and whether it'southward at the border, whether it'southward security, whether it's law and social club or lack of law and order. Then, of course, you get to merchandise, and I said to myself, 'What would exist good?' I was sitting at my desk-bound, where I am correct at present, and I said, 'Brand America Keen Again.' "

Democrats slammed it.

"If yous're looking for someone to say what is incorrect with America, I'm not your candidate. I think at that place is more correct than wrong," Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton said. "I don't recall we take to brand America keen. I think we have to make America greater."

Her husband, former president Bill Clinton, went so far as to declare it a racist dog whistle.

"I'm really erstwhile 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 yous America great 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.W. Bush had used "Let's Brand America Great Once more" in their 1980 campaign — a fact that Trump maintained he did not know until most a year ago.

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

His conclusion to claim legal ownership reflected a businessman'due south mind-gear up. "I think I'1000 somebody that understands marketing," Trump said.

Trump System lawyer Alan Garten said Trump holds upward of 800 trademarks in more than 80 countries.

The trademark became effective on July fourteen, 2015, a calendar month later on Trump formally appear his entrada 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 primary rivals Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker began tucking "make America great once again" into their own speeches, Trump's lawyers fired off end-and-desist letters.

Trump's red trucker cap featuring the Brand America Groovy Over 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 entrada. The one constant, it often seemed, was "Make America Great Once again."

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

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

"An appropriate icon for his failing campaign," the Washington Examiner'south Philip Wegmann wrote in late October. "The millions of hats volition brand first-class keepsakes for those who thought his populist blowing could overcome Clinton's unimaginative and conventional but well-oiled political motorcar."

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

"In the Style section, it was the ornamentation — what do you phone call that? — an accessory. They said the accessory of the year. Yous know the lid. Y'all'd see people going to the fanciest balls at the Waldorf Astoria wearing ruby-red hats," he exulted.

As is often the case, Trump's description is more than a little hyperbolic. What the newspaper actually wrote was that the "old-school" caps had become "the ironic must-have manner accessory of the summertime," 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 ane 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 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. Simply information technology was a slogan, and every time somebody buys one, that'south an advertizing."

However many hats he sold, what cannot be disputed is that "Make America Great Over again" defenseless on. It was the most effective kind of political message, bite-sized and visceral.

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

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

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

Her strategists considered 85 possibilities for a general-election campaign slogan earlier settling on "Stronger Together," co-ordinate to an email from the account of campaign chairman John Podesta that was published past WikiLeaks.

What they were up confronting was zilch short of "a marketing genius," said David Axelrod, who had been Obama'due south chief political strategist. Trump "understood the marketplace that he was trying to reach. You tin 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 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 prepare?" he said. " 'Keep America Cracking,' exclamation point."

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

2 minutes later, i arrived.

"Will you trademark and annals, if y'all would, if you like it — I think I like it, right? Do this: 'Continue America Dandy,' with an exclamation point. With and without an exclamation. 'Go on America Great,' " Trump said.

"Got information technology," the lawyer replied.

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

"I never idea I'd be giving [yous] my expression for four years [from now]," he said. "But I am so confident that we are going to be, it is going to exist so astonishing. It'south the only reason I give it to you lot. If I was, like, ambiguous near it, if I wasn't sure about what is going to happen — the state is going to exist great."

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

"Being a swell president has to do with a lot of things, but one of them is being a great cheerleader for the country," Trump said. "And we're going to evidence the people as we build upward our military machine, nosotros're going to display our military machine.

"That military may come up marching down Pennsylvania Avenue. That military machine may exist flying over New York City and Washington, D.C., for parades. I hateful, we're going to exist showing our military," he added.

But Trump acknowledged that slogans and showmanship volition non be the ultimate tests of whether the country is "swell over again."

The president-elect has an ambitious to-do listing for the next four years: building stronger borders, keeping the country safe against terrorism, producing more jobs, repealing the Affordable Care Human action, replacing it with something better, promoting excellence in engineering and science, investing in modern infrastructure.

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

"I recall they have to feel it," Trump acknowledged. "Beingness a cheerleader or a salesman for the country is very of import, simply yous withal have to produce the results."

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

Read more than:

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'Finally. Someone who thinks like me.'

Alice Crites contributed to this written 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