Public Comment

MAGA--Make America Great Again--has become a dog whistle, a kind of code that conveys special meaning to a certain segment of the population. I don’t think this was always the case. In the beginning, Republican marketing created a sense that it was about bringing well paying jobs back to the US. This was to be accomplished by encouraging a return of overseas manufacturing and by removing environmental controls that some thought drove manufacturing out. It was a cry to reverse the shrinking of the middle class and to create greater economic equality for everyone. Then they asked the question: “What have you got to lose?” It was very good marketing. 

It is now clear that the current administration isn’t capable or isn’t willing to bring about the type of change many thought they promised. The President paid lip service but failed to create change for the better. Instead we saw increased costs because of tariffs, little new manufacturing, and lost markets for farm products and other goods. There was no real benefit to the vast majority of Americans and many are now worse off.  

Some would go farther, saying the current administration is full of greedy elites who worked to rig government in their favor thereby reaping huge tax cuts and deregulation at the expense of the environment and everyone else. The rich have gotten richer and the poor poorer. Certainly the middle class is shrinking.  

Donald Trump is closely identified with MAGA. Given his failure at lifting up the vast majority of Americans there is a disconnect between the symbol and their hope. This disconnect has left a void which is being filled by what many feel is the essence of the man associated with the symbol. The process began soon after Trump became president when he defended Charlottesville white-nationalist protesters saying there are “some very fine people on both sides.” His statement that “when the looting starts the shooting starts,” his support for not removing confederate statues, and his refusal to rename military bases identified with the confederacy are all example of his racist views. Trump’s announcing a new regime of “law and order to crush protests and then the immediate clearing of the peaceful BLM protesters to make way for the photo op in front of St. John’s Church is another example of his white supremacist way of thinking. “MAGA” is now associated with this mindset. It has become a dog whistle to white supremacists. It looks to a return of a mythical time when they are in total control. 

This doesn’t mean that everyone who sports the MAGA symbol is a white supremacist. It may just mean they are still living in 2016 and not paying attention. What we have to lose? We all now know.b