Make America Great Again, we have heard the slogan and seen the merchandising continuously over the past seven years but no one has defined the time period they wish to recreate or what it was that made America so much better in those days gone by. What kind of country do you want to live in? What kind of a world do you want to leave to your children, grandchildren, and their heirs? At a minimum, you should define the time period you want to recreate, the conditions which made it great, and the accomplishments which defined that greatness. Otherwise it is simply a wasted exercise in futility which accomplishes nothing and does more harm than good. What did the four years of Trump really accomplish, a divided and weakened Republican Party, a divided and weakened America, a divided world, a new Cold War, and a now, a new war in Europe.
From my perspective, America was always a great nation. Our greatness flows from the original American Dream of equality as defined in the Declaration of Independence and the process our forefathers gave us to pursue that dream in the Constitution of the United States of America. If I had to pick one generation when America was at its best, I would choose the generation that came of age between 1945 and 1965. It was a generation of cooperation and sacrifice in which America helped bring about a successful conclusion to World War II, helped to create and pay for the United Nations, helped to rebuild Europe and Japan, created the Interstate Highway System here in America and moved the American Dream of social/economic/judicial equality forward creating a solid middle class and starting us on the road to desegregation. It was a time when America believed in paying its bills and controlling greed. The tax rates were the highest in my lifetime 91% on all income over $200,000. Yet we still had some of the worlds largest corporations, billionaires and millionaires, and a healthy and vibrant middle income working class. America accomplished a great deal between 1945 and 1965 and did it all with an outstanding national debt of $317,273,898,983.64 on 06/30/1965.
America’s decline began in the early 1960s with a religious insurgency led by the Southern Baptist Church. They were soon joined by other evangelical Christians who shared in their conspiracy of common thought that justified slavery, segregation, bigotry, and hatred for hundreds of years. The Catholic Churches opposition to family planning, birth control, and Roe V. Wade expanded their base within the Republican Party, and that religious base created an opportunity for those who believe in the power of greed. With the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 the coalition of Creed and Greed was born, creating the opportunity for even greater evil yet to come. When Reagan was elected in 1980 the debt was approximately 908 billion dollars. By the end of the Reagan Presidency the national debt was over 2 trillion 602 billion dollars. Today our national debt is over 29 trillion dollars. The coalition of creed and greed has decimated the middle class and created an elitist class of megalomaniacs too rich to prosecute and too rich to control.
Millions of Americans have been lied to, deceived, and betrayed simply because they failed to ask the questions: What time period in America do you want to recreate? What made America so great during that period of time? What was the political climate of the day? What kind of country do you want to live in? What kind of world do you want to leave to your children, grandchildren, and their heirs?