Opinion What does "Make America Great Again" mean to you? And how do you see it being great again?

[The Diplomat]

Agree to disagree on multiple points lol

I mean...ndia should absolutely note be a single country given its size, population, geography and internal dynamics. That it's a functioning country, let alone it was a democracy for while, is incredible.

I'm scared of India, just because of the smell*. But I think China fears India more than the US ever will.

*I'm not racist. I just hate curry. As does EVERYONE.

 

[JudoThrowFiasco]

I do think you really need to add some context that it has to be a a decent chunk of eligible members of the state. Otherwise you end up with an oligarchy or guided democracy, etc. Which aren't democracies in the modern sense I think most would say.

More or less the same as yours, with the added caveat of free and fair elections and the civil liberties needed to have those. I would consider a one party state highly correlated with non-democracies, but not all the time (Japan and Mexico, for example).

I would agree with oligarchy or guided democracy if the US hasn't seen a plethora of seat changes via election at pretty much ever election post constitution. If anything, people are more prone to view the US under those two lenses now more than 1 or 2 hundred years ago, even with the expanded voter eligibility; but that has nothing to with expanded base.

 

[bigkick]

The MAGA slogan seemed ridiculous to me from the start - another one of Trump’s shitty marketing ploys. And yet unfortunately there are enough extremely stupid people in this country who bought it.

I guess my question is, ok, when was the last time America was great and what do we need to do to get back to that position? Are things so bad for people today that they will support this horrible man (again)? Is it really possible that people don’t understand that Trump doesn’t care about anyone or anything other than himself?

 

[Deorum]

It's not that. Thing of what comes to mind when you think America: DC, NYC, The Declaration of Independence, Harvard, The New Colossus, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Gettysburg Address, Disney, the Civil Rights movement, baseball, football, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Ford--all things that are hated by the right today.

I think of Independence Hall, Bill of Rights, National Parks, North Dakota (family farm), and Rodeo. But point taken. It was pretty sad seeing so many people gang up on @Rational Poster and hate on NYC the other day along partisan political lines and talk about how it isn't worth shit despite the fact that - aside from being the financial capital of the world - it arguably holds a lion's share of America's best man-made attractions, landmarks, cultural institutions, and culinary diversity.

That said I do appreciate your input here. And the more productive tone of the conversations with those I generally am stringent disagreement with.

It's always cordial if not productive. I have a pretty robust sense of patriotism for a lot of different reasons, some of them probably subconscious. But I accept that not everyone shares my enthusiasm (and might even scoff at it). I understand why -- or at the least, I'm willing to hear it out. I wish nothing but the best for you and yours, bruv. We came damn close to running into each other at the Vegas convention center a couple weeks ago. Wtf was up with the wind that weekend? A bunch of outdoor concerts and events got canceled.

 

[Deorum]

I guess my question is, ok, when was the last time America was great and what do we need to do to get back to that position?

Either start properly funding the NPS or decommission sites by the dozens and sell them off to the private sector (which I'm pretty sure is actually the idea). It's the last thing I want, but if it means that the crown jewel national treasures are given priority for their DM&R backlogs then I'll accept it. There are 429 total park service units covering 85 million acres that see 320 million visitors on an annual basis. The $3 billion and (chump) change to manage them and maintain all of the associated infrastructure that goes into making them accessible to the public is preposterously insufficient.

 

[no fat chicks]

The funny thing is the majority of people that are going to vote for Trump because they like how he ran the country and thought he did a good job don't talk about Trump half as much as the people that actually suffer from TDS and can't go a whole day without mentioning his name.

Another way of saying trump voters are completely misinformed about actual policy and vote on vibes.

Strange flex

 

[JudoThrowFiasco]

FWIW infants and toddlers DO have voting rights, because they ARE citizens. They just cannot use it yet, and Im not saying they should. They dont lack the right because of a systemic discrimination.

Well they potentially have voting rights. Regardless, it was your usage of including the census as a point. Just odd to me your wording since the census is so wide open to domicile head counts.

 

[nostradumbass]

Keep licking those boots of corporations with billion dollar profits. Its obviously the little guy on the floor making livable wages thats the problem.
Meanwhile CEOs have gone from an average salary of 50 times the regular workers to 250-300 times. Profits in the billions.
Funny how so many other countries make it work.

Kind of a childish response. Who makes what work? The US has one of the highest median incomes in the world and the most companies on the Forbes Global 2000 list by more that double the next highest country, but it really isn't much different anywhere else for companies of similar size. The founder of IKEA died a few years ago with $60 billion, Jack Ma is worth like $30 billion, Tesco's CEO makes nearly $13 million/year, the Volkwagen CEO makes like $12 million/year.

Yeah, when your company has hundreds of thousands to millions of employees, the company tends to make more than when it had 2 locations and 20 employees, the same way there aren't small businesses where the boss makes even 50 times his employees. Which company in which country has half a million employees and is paying them all 6 figures for unskilled labor, or 2.3 million employees in Walmart's case? That's over $230 billion just for payroll, which is a hell of a baseline to have to clear every year just to break even when they haven't made that in any year ever.

 

[Sinister]

I think of Independence Hall, Bill of Rights, National Parks, North Dakota (family farm), and Rodeo. But point taken. It was pretty sad seeing so many people gang up on @Rational Poster and hate on NYC the other day along partisan political lines and talk about how it isn't worth shit despite the fact that - aside from being the financial capital of the world - it arguably holds a lion's share of America's best man-made attractions, landmarks, cultural institutions, and culinary diversity.



It's always cordial if not productive. I have a pretty robust sense of patriotism for a lot of different reasons, some of them probably subconscious. But I accept that not everyone shares my enthusiasm (and might even scoff at it). I understand why -- or at the least, I'm willing to hear it out. I wish nothing but the best for you and yours, bruv. We came damn close to running into each other at the Vegas convention center a couple weeks ago. Wtf was up with the wind that weekend? A bunch of outdoor concerts and events got canceled.

Yeah I believe we were on different sides of the building. If I wasnt there in a Professional capacity I'd have popped over if I knew you were there. Yeah Vegas wind is weird. I swear every Sunday, specifically its stupidly windy. My kids noticed it when we would go to the park. That day there was wind moving in from Cali.

Believe it or not I'm not a "down with America" type. I mean I'm arguing with @ferrisjso that I think this system is worth fixing. I love my Country and I believe we can, and should do better. Firm believer in Rule 303.

 

[Sinister]

Well they potentially have voting rights. Regardless, it was your usage of including the census as a point. Just odd to me your wording since the census is so wide open to domicile head counts.

Give this a swirl in the old noodle:

"The data collected by the decennial census determine the number of seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives."

And this:

"It is also used to draw the lines of legislative districts and reapportion the seats each State holds in Congress."

So with that I'll add a word to my earlier statement so you feel better about it. Having ADULT citizens counted in census data and deprived of voting rights is whack.

 

[JudoThrowFiasco]

Give this a swirl in the old noodle:

"The data collected by the decennial census determine the number of seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives."

And this:

"It is also used to draw the lines of legislative districts and reapportion the seats each State holds in Congress."

So with that I'll add a word to my earlier statement so you feel better about it. Having ADULT citizens counted in census data and deprived of voting rights is whack.

Yeah that makes more sense. I mean I disagree 100%, but from your lense in makes more sense.

 

[Sinister]

Yeah that makes more sense. I mean I disagree 100%, but from your lense in makes more sense.

I'd feel a f*ckton better about ex-cons being denied voting rights if I thought the justice system was unbiased. But it's not, and right now States who have bans on restoring voting rights for ex-cons, the overwhelming majority of people it effects are already marginalized by the system, Historically. Some of these places would vote for them to have a gun and still deny them the right to vote. Both are constitutionally guaranteed rights.

 

[Deorum]

Are people really this unaware of the country's history? TS thinks all we've contributed is movies and music?

I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.

Fuck.

 

[Prutfis]

Kind of a childish response. Who makes what work? The US has one of the highest median incomes in the world and the most companies on the Forbes Global 2000 list by more that double the next highest country, but it really isn't much different anywhere else for companies of similar size. The founder of IKEA died a few years ago with $60 billion, Jack Ma is worth like $30 billion, Tesco's CEO makes nearly $13 million/year, the Volkwagen CEO makes like $12 million/year.

Yeah, when your company has hundreds of thousands to millions of employees, the company tends to make more than when it had 2 locations and 20 employees, the same way there aren't small businesses where the boss makes even 50 times his employees. Which company in which country has half a million employees and is paying them all 6 figures for unskilled labor, or 2.3 million employees in Walmart's case? That's over $230 billion just for payroll, which is a hell of a baseline to have to clear every year just to break even when they haven't made that in any year ever.

I never said you have to pay 6 figures to unskilled labor. You have a very large part of the population working at or close to minimum wage, a lot of them even depending on tips to make minimum wage. These people cant afford their own apartment in the majority of the US. That is a major problem.
You want manufacturing to come back to the US but at the same time want the companies to pay 3rd world wages leading to the government subsidizing companies with billions in profits.
If you cant pay your workers a livable wage maybe your company shouldnt exist

 

[Deorum]

We ship meat into the country from overseas, FFS. Our farmlands are disappearing.

That's predominantly grass-fed beef from Australia and New Zealand. The farmlands are disappearing, you aren't wrong. The east coast in particular, has a long-standing fetish for paving paradise and putting up a parking lot. But do you see the big, beautiful green swath? It's the largest contiguous region of arable land with the highest degree of cropland intensity on the planet, with more miles of interconnected navigable waterways running through it than the rest of the planet combined. The United States is the world's largest agriculture exporter by a lot.

 

[Deorum]

As a foreign observer, for me this would mean a America that's trustworthy and admirable. I don't believe either of the main candidates are capable of improving America towards this ideal.

I wouldn't trust us.

Post-1945 foreign policy has mostly been disastrous, probably the thing to be least proud of alongside a bunch of - albeit far less serious - brainless, degenerate pop culture shit. It's not cool to consistently compromise the sovereignty of other countries, perpetually stirring up conflicts and waging proxy wars, having leaders overthrown or wiped out covertly and overtly, straight up toppling governments.

And not a fucking bit of it working towards the betterment of the American public, besmirching the name of the American people if anything. It's probably the most benevolent 'empire' ever, all things considered, and yes the CCP in the same position with the same projection of strength would be a far worse alternative but it's still been a mess. This stuff doesn't make America great.

 

[Deorum]

Right now we're on track to have 70% of Americans have only 30% of representatives in the Statement. Madison would be throwing hands over that.

Madison was a 5'4 sub-100lber who was too small to fight in the Revolutionary War, but the power of his pen game was GOAT level. He wrote the fucking Bill of Rights. He was also the framer that was foremost responsible for ensuring America became the first modern republic founded on a legal separation of church and state. The OG trailblazing secular western nation. It took a great deal of cunning and manipulation to achieve.

 

[rearnakedchoke]

Prior to the slogan being used, if you thought the USA needed some improvement, you weren’t a patriot. But all of a sudden, if you wanted “improvement”, you were now a real patriot.

It came from a guy who wanted to prove so bad that Obama wasn’t American. Basically he was saying, we need a president who isn’t black.

 

[Sinister]

Prior to the slogan being used, if you thought the USA needed some improvement, you weren’t a patriot. But all of a sudden, if you wanted “improvement”, you were now a real patriot.

It came from a guy who wanted to prove so bad that Obama wasn’t American. Basically he was saying, we need a president who isn’t black.

It's basically "preserve the demographic power-structure" in a general sense, so wealthy elites who say it can sound like they're echoing the sentiments of the everyman as they conspire to pick their pockets.

 

[nhbbear]

Personally, I think the intent is to put on a big pair of rose colored glasses and look back at the 50s before the civil rights unrest and rapidly changing society. People began to prosper in the 50s, which was a big deal after the first fifty years of the century containing two world wars and a Great Depression.

Families were strong. Economic development was strong. Technology was growing. Life was improving.

However, if you hate the man that coined the slogan-and I do, you hate the slogan. Harkening back to the 50s is like saying the civil rights movement of the 60s was a mistake (i am not saying it is, I am saying that the detractors of this slogan believe that) and things have gone down hill since then, and I do believe that to be true. Every decade seems to get a little worse. We’ve never been so advanced as we are right now-yet, we have never been so far from prosperity for so many. The middle class is stagnated, the lower glass is growing while the rich are getting richer-and that’s not how it should be. It seemed like in the 50s, more people were getting a slice of pie while now, more seems to just get some crumbs of those at the top having their seconds.