'Make America Great Again' is a Dangerous Political Tool

[wvit1001]

As far back as you go, there’s always someone longing for longer ago


“Make America great again!” … and again, and again. Trump’s campaign wants to rally supporters around that cry, motivating crowds with the idea of harking back to what America supposedly once was. In fact, “again” could be seen as the most important word in the phrase. That little adverb carries a lot of weight, implying that things are worse now than they once were, and evoking a powerful political nostalgia for a past — whatever that past may be — that was allegedly better. But no matter how far back you look, someone is always yearning to look back further, to an imagined better time.

The word “nostalgia” comes from the Greek nostos, which means to return home, and algos, or pain. Originally referring specifically to homesickness, nostalgia now signifies a much broader, bittersweet longing for familiar surroundings or the way things used to be. As a nation, this longing for a lost, better era is a political mainstay — one that appeals especially to the conservative-minded (who, by definition, tend to be somewhat backward-looking).

Interestingly, nostalgia is most often oriented away from complexity and toward simplicity. We look back fondly to when things were supposedly simpler, more clear, less confusing. We long for remnants large and small of an earlier age: TV remote controls with just a few basic buttons. Being able to board a plane without going through long, tedious security procedures. Letting kids roam and play without fear of predators. Quiet family dinners without intrusive emails, texting, or Internet browsing.
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Nostalgia is bittersweet — bitter because it concerns what we have lost; sweet because it concerns something we loved. It’s one thing to be nostalgic for a lost summer crush from childhood; it’s another thing altogether to use it to frame a national discourse. Constantly harking back to an imaginary past turns us away from the task before us as a society: not to chart a return to how things never were, but to build a future that accords with our twenty-first century realities and ideals.


https://timeline.com/false-nostalgia-donald-trump-e935ef77018c#.nixi5n8y5

[Jim]

 
"Change" is not always as good as its cracked up to be.  Ask the Jews in WWII.  Ask the Jim Jones kool Aid drinkers.

 

[Truman62]

Ask GWB who took us back to the Great Depression! 

[wvit1001]

change was good for America after the republicans had run it into the ditch with the Bush presidency.

[stretch351c]

At least according to the Leftist version of history.

[wvit1001]

no, according to reality. 

[stretch351c]

Who was it that stopped GWB from reforming Freddie and Fannie over 70 times? Hint, it wasn't Republicans.  I realize that Leftists have no real understanding of economics, their failed policies prove that, but business is proactive, not reactive. Once Democrats took control of Congress, businesses knew they were going to get screwed, so they planned for it.

[Jim]

Ask GWB who took us back to the Great Depression!

No he didn't. Why do you always need to Lie?  Can't find enough truth to fit into a short sentence?

[chuck_curtis]

It surely is a dangerous political tool against those who brought us to this sad state of affairs.   It isn't resonating with us peons for no reason.  If your masters were even half of what they claim to be, that wouldn't be the case.

[seahooker]

vit posts an opinion piece from far lefties and that is supposed to change a conservatives thinking. give me a break

[darkflower]

"Being able to board a plane without going through long, tedious security procedures"

That is not nostalgia, that is  wanting our 4th amendment rights back from the evil security state which stole them away from us. The worst thing about 911 was not what the terrorists did it is what the government did. The government is the one who attacked our way of life, NOT the terrorists. The government is the one who stole our freedoms, not the terrorists. The government is the real enemy, not the terrorists.