Donald Trump’s Campaign Slogan “Make America Great Again”
Photo: http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/555246276da8114c57fe49d6-506-253/donald-trump-trademarked-a-ronald-reagan-slogan-and-would-like-to-stop-other-republicans-from-using-it.jpg
The United States Presidential elections have always sent the world media into a frenzy of coverage on political parties, hot topics and most especially, the candidates themselves and their bloodthirsty drive to obtain the most powerful and coveted spot in the world, thee seat in the world famous Oval Office. This year’s US election seems to be more circus-like than ever before with the colourful, and in some cases, bizarre candidates. The most notorious, billionaire Donald Trump. The world has watched as Donald Trump has loudly and pointedly offended almost every minority in existence whilst promising to “Make America Great Again”. No one is safe from his tirades, yet we eat it up as entertainment. His continued success on the campaign trail is mystifying millions, if not billions globally, for how can someone so obviously and unapologetically racist, prejudist, sexist and elitist be a contender to be the leader of the free world? As discussed in the Jamie Warner Political Culture Jamming article, “Many of the same branding techniques used to sell soap and MP3 players are exploited for political gain….In addition to creating a sense of familiarity, an important part of building trust, repetition of carefully researched emotional messages helps locate a part of politician as one of the “top of mind” or “dominant” brands-the first or, hopefully, the only brand that comes to mind in response to a particular stimuli” (2007). Regardless of how garish and crass Trump can shockingly be, his platform to “Make America Great Again” has clearly struck a chord amongst the American voters. By evoking patriotic sentiment with the American people in such a loud, in-your-face manner, through means of rudeness and ridicule, and focusing on all America’s perceived problems he has gained supporters, as well as generated a fierce hatred all over the world. The problem I will be addressing in my political culture jam is Donald’s Trump ideas on “making America great again”.
Political Culture Jam:
*Note: I edited this on Photoshop, which was too large a file to upload, and had to be converted to a smaller JPEG file, which is why it is too pixeled to enlarge.
My jammed picture of Donald Trump’s quote and slogan “Make America Great Again” includes pictures of current hot topics in the news today, and quotes of his regarding each. On the topic of a women’s right to abortion Trump said, amongst other things such as ceasing funding for Planned Parenthood in the USA, is that “There has to be some kind of punishment” for women who seek abortions. Trump has shown his racist views many times, and has promised to build a wall between the USA and Mexico to keep Mexicans out: “I will build a better wall and I’ll build it for cheaper and Mexico will pay for it”. Mexicans are not the only minority Trump has set his sights on keeping out. Playing upon people’s fear of the Middle East and terrorism, especially with recent terrorist attacks around the globe, Trump has preyed upon the Muslim community. When asked to speak on his diplomacy skills and his plan for ISIS should he become president he’s quoted as saying, “I would bomb the shit out of ’em. I would just bomb those suckers. That’s right. I’d blow up the pipes. … I’d blow up every single inch. There would be nothing left”. Lastly, when discussing same-sex marriage, which many Americans now enjoy the right to do, he has said he would “strongly consider” looking at appointing justices who would overturn the same-sex marriage decision.
As the world watches each presidential candidate in the final months of the US Presidential Campaign, we wonder how someone like Trump was able to get this far. In creating this political culture jam I hope to juxtapose Trump’s distorted, backwards and incredibly harmful views, which promise to undo decades of progress and nullify the efforts of presidents past, with his promise to “Make America Great Again”.