Say It Once, and It’s Memorized
November 13, 2025
As a slogan designed to resonate with frustrated residents in the United States, MAGA is an amazingly effective political hook. Just four words long — Make America Great Again — captures the American Dream of betterment, with each generation pushing closer to fulfilling the unalienable rights of the Declaration of Independence. It’s so easy to remember that just a single look will suffice. What’s to argue about the slogan’s message, and yet it’s prescribed road map reflects many contradictions.
First, the final word, again, suggests a return to how conditions in America once had been. However, the recipe for this second act of grandeur involves profound and literally across-the-board changes from anything seen before. The most consistent characteristic of President Trump’s second term, and to a lesser extent first term, is that on almost every day headlines announce something totally unprecedented. Change is not just happening at warp speed, the remedy involves stuff not tried before. How is it, then, that America managed to achieve greatness in the past with a wholly different game plan than is being offered now?
The slogan’s third word, great, also presents some riddles, begging one to explore what exactly made America a super power in the last century. Four traits come immediately to mind: a formidable military, sustained comparative rapid economic growth, fundamental individual freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights, and political stability that can be counted on to last.
- The military enjoyed victories in 2025, but bombing small ships in international waters and a hit-and-run attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities hardly represent a show of preparedness for serious combat against the forces of another military superpower. Firing loads of highly decorated generals, experienced intelligence agency workers, as well as limiting the role of women in the military seem dubious gambles that will jeopardize the military down the road.
- Changes in immigration policy and an energized industrial policy anchored around punishing tariffs are innovations that, historically speaking, have been associated with lessening economic growth. As much as anything, America has achieved its vibrant long-term economic growth because of its ability to attract the smartest and most innovative foreign talent. Tariff wars in the past have correlated too often with difficult economic consequences to take comfort from those assuring that this experience with them will be any different. Another peculiar way to boost economic growth is putting politics back into monetary policy. Look around the world to such examples now and in the past, and one can’t help but conclude that such a move will prove regrettable.
- Using trained soldiers to police cities against crime and mental illness is a contradictory way to instill a sense of freedom among urban residents. Since many rural areas actually have higher serious crime rates than cities, it seems arbitrary to limit this new program to a few cities. If they can benefit, why not expand the operation to the entire country?
- The MAGA movement is comfortable with a we-versus-they approach to all policy-making, and that framework encourages extreme factions to lead other political parties as well. When the party out of power is portrayed as a greater enemy than traditional foes abroad, there is little left to preserve America’s long-earned image of internal political stability.
MAGA doesn’t deny that its political tent includes extremist elements but defends that fact by asserting that the extremist wing among right-of-center politics is well-meaning, whereas their left-of-center counterparts are subversive and prone to terrorism. That dichotomy itself raises yet another contradiction. The foes in America’s three deadliest wars during the past 170 years were each right-of-center threats: the axis nations in WW2, Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire in WWI, and the southern confederate states that seceded from the Union in 1861.
The consolidation of U.S. political power in the federal executive branch coinciding with an originalist approach to interpreting the constitution offers another contradiction. The part of the U.S. Constitution that speaks most directly to what the framers wanted for future generations is the short preamble that summarizes their long-term goals of establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, and promoting the general welfare and blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. A movement that aggressively sows anger between the two halves of the country’s citizenry hardly seems in harmony with an originalist interpretation of how to run the country.
It is counter-intuitive as well that MAGA’s efforts to restore America to former glory should be so deeply rooted in an infusion of religion into the center of secular governance. Many of America’s founding fathers were spiritually minded but not deeply affiliated with any denomination. Even more leaders back then feared the consequences of adopting a state religion. Separating church from state affairs was considered extremely important for long-term viability and happiness. MAGA believers see a more tangible link of religion with politics as a path to peace, yet religious differences pitting one tribe against another are fault lines underlying many of the most strained conflicts around the world today.
As a coined phrase, a marketing promotion if you will, Make America Great Again is pure genius for its simplicity and power to inspire devotion and hope for many. As a door to an improved society, it also inspires equally vast numbers of doubters and has been unquestionably polarizing.
Copyright 2025, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved.
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