Whatever you may think of Donald Trump, it is hard to deny that his campaign’s slogan has resonated with a significant portion of the American public. Among people who think America’s best days are behind her, the rallying cry “Make America Great Again” is a call to reclaim something that has been lost, something that Trump wants us to believe that he can restore to our country. Since Trump is not exactly clear on what he means by “greatness,” we are left to fill in the details of what America the Great might look like under a Trump presidency. Noting his appeal among the white working class, some commentators have pointed out the racial nature of his appeal, as if with this slogan he is saying, “Let us return to the good old days when white people had a fair shot at getting ahead in life.” This is taken to imply the exclusion of the non-white population, since they have allegedly taken the jobs that used to belong to hard-working blue-collar men and women.
A more charitable reading of Trump’s idea of greatness would entail the reversal of the decline in economic conditions that have deprived so many Americans of the hope of a stable and comfortable life. In this case, greatness means bringing manufacturing jobs back to America, or at least restoring the fortunes of those who have been left behind by the globalizing economy. Additionally, we could construe it as greatness in the realm of foreign policy, such that making America great again would include a retreat from failed endeavors in the Middle East and assuming a posture of “America First.” And after our generally acknowledged failures to make any sort of progress in our post-9/11 foreign policy, this critique does have a certain plausibility to some observers.
But as much as the implied critique of recent American politics may resonate among some people, it still leaves us wondering about what exactly Trump proposes that can make America great. Can national greatness be defined merely as a return to the economic and political conditions of the 1950s? One can see why this might appeal to the displaced workers longing for some golden age of American manufacturing, but it is certainly less apparent that anyone else—particularly minorities—should be so sanguine about a “return” to this time in our national history. So if we cannot look to some imagined past to restore our country to greatness, then where can we look to fill in this vague notion of what makes a nation great?
I would argue that the desire for a specifically American brand of greatness has deep roots that transcend the hot-button political issues bandied about every election cycle. It is not something that can be gained or lost as politicians come and go, but is something fundamental to our democracy. French political observer Alexis de Tocqueville penned what is probably the best description of America’s true greatness in “Democracy in America,” which was written in the early stages of the republic. As an aristocrat, Tocqueville lamented the loss of the great human endeavors apparently engendered by aristocracy, but he saw a new, milder greatness in America’s fledgling democracy. He noted that “equality may be less elevated, but it is more just, and in its justice lies its greatness and beauty.”
That equality and justice could be reasons to regard a nation as great certainly struck Tocqueville as a novelty, but he was able to recognize that it nonetheless represented a real advance in the condition of humanity. At the heart of the American democratic project is the idea that greatness is not reserved for the privileged few, but that it is something to which every person can aspire by living in a condition of freedom with the promise of equal justice under the law.
That we as a country have often failed to attain this goal is a regrettable fact, but it should not detract from the conclusion that America’s greatness is not in fact a function of economic and political conditions. Rather, it is inherent within the moral fiber of our nation and is nurtured when citizens refuse to let trying circumstances detract from the noble goals of our political community.
This is not to downplay the very real struggles that many supporters of both Trump and Clinton are facing. But it should give us pause before being too quick to uphold our respective political opinions as the one way to return America to greatness, however that might be conceived in terms of economic and political well-being. Greatness is indeed a noble thing to pursue, but only when we understand what it means in the context of our American democracy.
Ryan Ward is a member of the Class of 2017.