Is the MAGA Movement Inherently Racist?
Make America Great Again … Again?
In the news we’ve seen a lot of people wearing Make America Great Again hats getting their hats taken from them, spat on or just flat out being told that they’re bad people for it. Kanye West has proudly stated that he’ll start performing with his MAGA hat on and is proud of it.
I completely understand why you would be upset seeing a MAGA hat on top of someone’s head — “Make America Great Again” is a slogan that is currently synonymous with the Donald J. Trump, the 45th and current President of the United States, business man, ex-reality TV star and Twitter personality. President Trump has on multiple occasions showed himself to be insensitive and unaware of race issues in America, I’ve even written about how the treatment of Puerto Ricans by the US government is at its roots racist and a form of state violence *cough*link here*cough*. When we talk about MAGA we talk about the Trump administration and then we talk about NAFTA, bad deals, tightening up borders, destroying our enemies, world domination and returning America back to greatness. But what did Trump actually mean when he said “let’s make America great again”?
The slogan finds its origins in Ronald Reagan’s 1980 Presidential campaign. Reagan’s slogan was actually “Let’s make America great again”, but Trump is too smart to blatantly copy someone else like that, so he took the creative inspiration from Reagan, dropped the ‘let’s’ and capitalized the first letter of every word and now we have MAGA.
Reagan is also a President synonymous with insensitivity. He used “Let’s make America great again” as a means to inspire Americans to bounce back from a period of economic stagflation and to create a sense of patriotism. Reagan’s campaign wasn’t so racially motivated as Trump, when he said let’s make America great again, he really meant it in regards to the US’ economic state. Reagan was responsible for the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 that legalized irregular immigrants who arrived in the US before 1982. This was most beneficial for Mexican families who had a history of migration to the United States and had many of their pathways blocked because of laws passed and the end of the Bracero program.
When Reagan called on the American people to make their country great again, he didn’t necessarily mean to blame immigrants. He is quoted as saying
“these families came here to work … they came to build. Others came to America in different ways, from other lands, under different, and often harrowing conditions, but this place symbolizes what they all managed to build, no matter where they came from or how they came or how much they suffered … They helped to build that magnificent city across the river. They spread across the land building other cities and towns and incredibly productive farms. They came to make America work. They didn’t ask what this country could do for them but what they could do to make this refuge the greatest home of freedom in history. They brought with them courage, ambition and the values of family, neighbourhood, work, peace, and freedom. They came from different lands but they shared the same values, the same dream.”
Making America great again does not have to be synonymous with xenophobia, ethno-nationalism or hatred. But here we are today.
Is making America great again supposed to be about race, about keeping immigrants out, only allowing the best and brightest into America? No. Making America great again is really about just that, making the country great again.
But is MAGA about making America great again? Donald Trump calls for the same voodoo economics that Reagan did, attempting to unite the nation under common economic struggles and a shared plight. The unique thing about Trump’s MAGA compared to Reagan’s let’s make America great again is Trump creates more boogie men, more villains, more for the everyday American to be afraid of. Trump’s use of scare tactics, painting the picture of an illegal immigrant as a criminal rather than a migrant following their family or the child sent here by their parents in hope for a better.
Trump tells us that to make America great again the American public has to deport their neighbours and build walls in their backyard. He proclaims strength in borders is what they need, he blames the current state of the American economy on bad deals and taxes (okay every Republican blames taxes, but I digress).
I think that Trump’s MAGA is more than simply making America great again, I think it’s become a vehicle for racism and xenophobia. I think the words themselves make sense for anyone patriotic about his country to utter, but I think the movement and what it has become are in and of itself its own monster. I don’t support wearing MAGA hats, I don’t think it’s simply a call for bringing a country back to greatness, I think it’s become militarized into something bigger than patriotism.
