Analyzing a Contemporary Mythology: "make America Great Again"

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Despite being just a short couple of words strewn together by the English language, this slogan has a much deeper social meaning. To understand what this meaning is, one must look at how Trump is claiming he will make the situation great again. Per Trump, he says the country is in trouble, and if he wins the presidency he would defeat the Islamic State, stop Islamic terrorists, overturn abortion rulings such as Roe v. Wade to return abortion laws to the states (as well as defund Planned Parenthood if they continue exercising the practice of abortions), and create a wall to limit illegal immigrants from entering the country from Mexico. Essentially, what he is claiming is extremely appealing to the conservative American. As Barthes, would describe wine, the conservation of American ideals (as the slogan implies it will do) has become a totem to many conservatives. The slogan acts as the wine, quenching the thirst that conservatives have been idly waiting for while a liberal non-wine drink (president) maintained office. Ironically, it may be compared to the identical campaign of Adolf Hitler, whom claimed that he could return Germany to its rightful and Germanic ideals. This would also become another reason for the beginning of a deeper social significance. Trump’s opponents in this campaign, Democrats, and a hefty amount of liberal college students started making the social connections from Adolf’s campaign to Donald’s. While this is an extremely negative view to give upon Trump, especially with the stigma of hate around Adolf Hitler and his ideas about the perfect German citizen, this comparison is not done so in vain or without fear of worry. Which in turn gives the slogan an entirely different, but with the same magnitude of his supporters, social meaning. This comparison was first made with the series of Trump sayings from his speeches. Shared vehemently around social media sites, quickly people began making posts comparing Trump’s hateful remarks against Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, Muslims, and Muslim-Americans, and women (of all races). The comparison comes with the way Americans think about Trump and the way Germans viewed Hitler. Numerous news-clippings and personal video testimonies from German citizens from that time claimed that they never saw it coming (meaning the way Hitler handled Jewish people and the Holocaust). An interview done some years after the Holocaust an unnamed German woman described what it was like living in Hitler’s Germany. Line per line, she claims: “We did not understand, we did not know. We thought he was going to save the Germans from the economic situation caused by the Jewish people and World War I. He made us believe we had something to hate about them. He turned us away from other humans just like that (she snaps her fingers).” (Timelines TV). As of today, the exact same kind of speech millions of Americans are hearing nearly every day. Trump claims extremely similar things about Mexicans and Mexican-Americans as Hitler claims about the Jewish. He claims that Latinos are rapists, criminals,and that they should not be residing within our country: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have a lot of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” (Trump). Just the same as Hitler, he is making broad generalizations about an entire demographic of people. Specifically, the words to focus on: “They’re not sending you” bluntly implies that Americans are better than them. Americans are better than the immigrants coming from Mexico. Mexicans are rapists as Jews are to “Judenschwein" (Jewpigs) in simpler terms. With this shared cultural meaning, the Hitler and Trump comparison is what really solidifies his campaign slogan as having truly deep social meaning.

Works Cited Page

Bill Clinton Says 'Make America Great Again' Is Just a Racist Dog Whistle. Dir. Hilary Clinton and One News Page. Perf. Bill Clinton. One News Page. One News Page, 2 Sept. 2016. Web. 6 Nov. 2016. .

Barthes, Roland. "Wine and Milk." Mythologies. Complete ed. Vol. 2. Parils: Seuil, 1957. 79-82. Print.

Marcus, Lloyd. "Make America Great Again Is a Movement." American Thinker Org. American Thinker, Oct. Web. 08 Nov. 2016.

Nazi Germany Under Hitler's Spell. Dir. Timelines TV. Perf. Fritz Meuhlebach, Multiple Unnamed German Citizens. Nazi Germany Under Hitler's Spell. Timelines TV, 3 Feb. 2013. Web. 9 Nov. 2016. .