How can Trump make America great again?

            I’ve been thinking about some of the things that Donald Trump has been saying, even though it seems like he says a lot of things without thinking. The one thing in particular is his tag line of “Make America great again”. Let’s skip over the fact that Ronald Reagan used “Let’s Make America Great Again!” during his presidential campaign in 1980.

            My question is: When exactly was America great?

Was it at the founding 240 years ago when a group of land and “chattel” owners got fed up with paying too much in taxes to the Royals across the ocean for what in essence was conquered and “stolen property”.

            Or was it 50 some years later when we reneged on our deal with the “Civilized Indian Nations” and “legally” took the rest of their ancestral lands?

            Maybe it was when a bunch of states seceded and formed the Confederacy that then lead to the Civil War and the greatest loss of American lives in our history.

            Could it be a few years later when Lincoln became the first of four presidents assassinated while in office. 4 out of 43 that’s almost 10 percent, sounds kind of crazy.

            I’m sure that Trump would think that the “Gilded Age” of the late 1800’s was great. The Rich got richer and the poor stayed poor as millions more immigrated and kept the cheap labor pool full.

            Or how about the dichotomy of the Roaring Twenties and Prohibition, we had this tremendous growth in the economy, the arts, technology and innovation coupled with the ill-conceived restrictions on alcohol consumption and all leading up to the Great Depression.

            We had to be attacked by the Japanese before we would do the right thing and join the fight against Hitler’s extermination of the Jews in WWII.

            Up to this point my questions on greatness has been historical and before Trumps birth. Like most of us he was taught in school that the founding fathers and most figures from American history could do no wrong, but what about in his personal experience?

            Were the 50’s great with McCarthyism, Jim Crow, and the start of military involvement in Viet Nam?

            It couldn’t be the 60’s with the all out war in Viet Nam, race riots, and the assassination of two Kennedy’s and a King.

             I know. He must be talking about the 70’s when I’m sure Donald was loving the Disco’s, hanging out at Studio 54, dancing The Hustle, and maybe doing a line or two?

            What can we say about the 80’s other than Iran helped get Ronald Reagan elected then we had trickle down, tear down this wall (and the unions), the invasion of Granada, and the Iran-Contra affair. We also can’t forget the death of John Lennon or the birth of both MTV and FOX News.

            The 90’s were great if you loved Bill Clinton or just wanted to party like it’s 1999. Oh, but there was also Desert Storm, the Rodney King riots, Waco, the Oklahoma City bombing, OJ, Columbine, and last but not least a little thing that we thought would end the world as we know it, the Y2K bug.

            Finally, the new Millennium, also not so great. 9-11, conspiracy or not it changed our lives forever. 15 plus years of war in the Middle East, the never ending War on Terror and the housing bubble bursts taking most of us down with it. But worst of all smart phones and social media have taken over our lives, Tweet about that @realDonaldTrump.

            OK, now before you start getting on me about hating America or how this just looks like an American history timeline pulled from Wikipedia (which it is). The point I’m trying to make is that this thing, this inanimate object, this piece of Earth, this Country we call America has never been or can never be great.

What is great, always has been, and I’m hopeful always will be are the people, the individuals, the families, the groups, the ones who make up this social concept we call a country. If you go back and look at our American history timeline you will see that every step of the way there were individuals trying to do the right thing. Sometimes they were knocked down by a self serving majority, other times they were successful in changing the status quo.

           That’s why I disagree with Donald Trump because the greatness he is talking about is in material wealth. That’s all he knows because he is “rich” as he so likes to brag. The greatness I’m talking about is that of spirit, so to paraphrase a much beloved and admired American Muslim, We are the Greatest.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 16 of the following link.Winters Express 6/23/16