‘Great Again’ is a Promise

If it had all gone as Democratic Party elites planned at the beginning of 2024, Joe Biden – in his diminished state – would still be president and Donald Trump would be in jail. In spite of their best laid plans, the election is over, and Trump will once again be the President of the United States. The road here was an arduous one marked by political prosecutions, disinformation from the mainstream press, and a number of would-be assassins. But Trump once again defied the odds and his elite critics, ushering in a new era for the Right and the nation.

His success was by no means guaranteed. Trump has been relentlessly opposed by the most privileged people in American society. The reason Trump continues to defeat the out-of-touch elites who oppose him should be obvious to them after nearly a decade, but, if The Atlantic is to be believed, they are still quite perplexed.

The answer to Trump’s continued appeal is not as complicated as mainstream commentators make it out to be, and it is certainly not reducible to voters’ supposed racism or their alleged fondness for 20^th century Italian politics. It is encapsulated in the campaign’s motto: Make America Great Again. In those words, Trump has captured the absolute best of conservative thinking. At once reverent of America’s past and forward looking, the call to make this nation great once again has animated voters left out of the dominant neoliberal schema. That message has resonated with the American public, and it has assembled a new coalition of American voters.

It should be remembered, though, that ‘Great Again’ is a promise, the foremost campaign promise Trump has made to the American people. Waylaid on all sides by big government bureaucrats, trans-national corporations, and disconnected cultural tastemakers, the American people are feeling their liberty and prosperity slipping. They have sought a champion in Donald Trump to fight these elites on their behalf.

And fight them he must, for this is exactly what he has promised to do. For too long, these elites have awkwardly ruled America while simultaneously being uncomfortable with its history and its people. They prefer the uncomplicated global community, one unbedevilled by a past and bereft of the quaint responsibilities to lead or represent. They have previously been able to cling to the fact that a bare majority supports the status quo, but with Trump’s popular vote win, that security blanket must now be cast aside.

They find Trump so horrifying in part because his promise to make America great again pierces that fantasy of a world in which views of their fellow Americans are in any way more relevant than the views of the Davos set. That they may, in fact, in some way, owe something to the nation and the people that underwrite their security and their wealth is loathsome to them. After all, they have provided them with cheap, shoddy goods. What right do they have to complain?

Every single one as it turns out, and the only answer the Democrats have is trotting out various millionaire and billionaire celebrities that make up their party. It speaks to the deep-seated contempt that the elite has for ordinary Americans. Concerned about immigration? LeBron James just endorsed Kamala! Struggling to pay for groceries? Taylor Swift is a cat lady just like you! Worried about endless wars? Katy Perry is very concerned about creeping authoritarianism!

These non-sequiturs have failed to compel for a reason: because they speak to no one. “Great Again” must still be fulfilled, of course, if the Republican Party wishes to keep its new coalition, but it unequivocally speaks to people. The aforementioned problems of illegal immigration, the cost of living, and the lack of a representative government must be addressed.

Trump has campaigned on solutions to each of these issues. Building a border wall, reinstating “Remain in Mexico,” and deporting those here illegally will help address the impact of immigration on the labor market. An expanded child tax credit and baby bonus will ease the financial strain of inflation affecting young families. Tariffs will, in time, reshore manufacturing and, coupled with that robust immigration enforcement, will improve worker power and nudge wages upwards.

But the restoration of representative government, a point theoretically cherished by the Democratic elites and voters (though they mean starkly different things by it), will take something a bit different, and it is exactly what making America great again will entail. Enacting the American people’s will on immigration is a critical first step, but it is not the whole of the case. Restoring democratic control of the administrative departments is also essential. Presently, much of the decision-making in this country is done by institutions controlled by and solely responsive to the elite. Changing that must be an essential part of the agenda.

For today, it is enough to have won. Showing the government, business, and cultural elites that their viewpoint is not the only one that counts is more than sufficient. Over the next four years, the Trump-Vance administration must make major strides in serving the voters that propelled them to power. If they succeed in fulfilling their promise to make America great again, it portends a true realignment, and conservatives could be in the hunt for a majority akin to FDR’s.