Posted on 08/30/2024 3:28:20 PM PDT by TBP
While Donald Trump is not a politician known for his message discipline, he took the world by storm in 2016 with a well-articulated diagnosis of what ailed the nation. “Make America Great Again” managed in four words to assert that America had been great, that it no longer was, and that he would do something about it.
His current campaign, by contrast, has devolved into the litigation of personal vendettas, crass promotion of niche issues like cryptocurrency, and pandering to the donor class on tax cuts and temporary labor.
The rallying cry to “Make America Great Again” has become the personal brand of “MAGA,” and these are not the same thing at all.
ONE THING TO READ THIS WEEK
Your one thing to read this week is “Why Do So Many Workers Love Trump?” Yes, that’s right, we’re starting with a piece in Jacobin, from Center for Working-Class Politics director Jared Abbott.
Abbott goes back to 2016 to remind readers of the original Trump campaign’s intensive focus on economic issues. “If we look at the content of Trump’s appeals to working-class voters,” he writes:
we see that a narrow focus on the darkest aspects of Trump’s rhetoric belies consistent and often quite powerful appeals that tap directly into decades of economic dislocation experienced by millions of American workers. … Trump used pro-worker rhetoric nearly three times as often— and anti–economic elite rhetoric more than twice as often—as he brought up controversial social issues.
When Trump focused on immigration, “his remarks framed immigration in terms of protecting American workers, not in overtly bigoted terms based on the condemnation of an entire class of people.”
Ironically, in a darkly tragic sort of way, Trump the iconoclast was eager to make his economic case at a time when it was novel and, as a result, had little institutional or intellectual foundation. Nearly a decade later, a robust set of arguments, attacks, critiques, examples, and policies is available. His selection of Senator JD Vance, a leader on many of those fronts, as his running mate suggests Trump is at least aware of their existence. But a coterie of Old Right consultants and donors who wanted nothing to do with him in 2016—leaving him to his much better instincts—has taken the reins and seems determined to steer the campaign into a ditch.
It doesn’t fit on a bumpersticker, but time is running out to Make Make America Great Again Great Again.
BONUS LINK: One of the best things written about the 2016 Trump campaign was by Mike Konczal, then a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, now a special assistant to President Joe Biden for economic policy: Trump Is Actually Full of Policy. Policy wonks write whitepapers, Konczal argued, but in politics, the “policy” that voters care about is your description of the problems that they want solved. This was where Trump excelled.
This writer is just another Pearl clutching a-hole.
Tell Oren that stolen elections have consequences
The only difference I see between MAGA-2020 and MAGA-2024, is in the years. Same ACRONYM, same idea, different years. Who wouldn’t want to “Make America Great Again”.
Democrats turn America into a shithole, and MAGA comes to the rescue.
Good point.
It helps that MAGA came about because of the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama era...
And that era has been back in the White House with the installation of Brandon for these last 4 years..
So can a stolen election.
It’s not hard to understand.
The difference between the DOJ and a department of JUSTICE
Indeed.
Absolutely amazing what passes for intellectual writing these days. This author hasn’t a clue.
Nobody actually following Trump’s current campaign could write such nonsense as this article. Sounds like a RINO trying to trick the base into turning on Trump by ignoring 90% of his actual campaign.
I don’t think this guy gets it.
You are actually buying this crap?
You’re probably right.....just a minor detail!
“Horsefeathers’’
Professor:”Why Professor Wagstaff what brings you to class?’’
Groucho: A bicycle but I left it out in the hall. Have you got two empty dunce chairs? I bought you two dunces. Here they are, 10 cents a dunce’’.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.