{"id":2948,"date":"2019-04-13T13:25:53","date_gmt":"2019-04-13T17:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.graymanwrites.com\/blog\/?p=2948"},"modified":"2019-04-13T13:47:32","modified_gmt":"2019-04-13T17:47:32","slug":"in-search-of-a-new-political-slogan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/in-search-of-a-new-political-slogan\/","title":{"rendered":"In Search of a New Political Slogan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>President Trump has had so much success with &#8220;Make America Great Again&#8221; &#8212; <strong>which I never fully understood, since I was convinced that the USA was pretty great already<\/strong>, but which I have to admit is continually effective in how it drives some people beyond crazy &#8212; that I started thinking I might need a new slogan for my ongoing &#8220;Anti-Campaign.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>(<em>For those unfamiliar with the Anti-Candidate&#8217;s Anti-Campaign, we offer two musical introductions: <a href=\"https:\/\/grayrinehart.bandcamp.com\/track\/i-think-ill-run-for-congress\">&#8220;I Think I&#8217;ll Run for Congress&#8221;<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/grayrinehart.bandcamp.com\/track\/the-anti-candidate-song\">&#8220;The Anti-Candidate Song&#8221;<\/a>.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>My first thought was to copy the &#8220;MAGA&#8221; formula exactly, and one early contender in that vein was &#8220;Make America <em>Gray&#8217;s<\/em> Again&#8221; &#8212; but that seemed too &#8220;arrogant and megalomaniacal&#8221; even for me ?. (<em>If you&#8217;re not sure about the &#8220;arrogant and megalomaniacal&#8221; references, you definitely need to listen to the musical introductions above.<\/em>) Plus, it would need to be somewhat different so as not to confuse people too much.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.graymanwrites.com\/pix\/blog\/2019\/insertACslogan.jpg\" alt=\" \" \/><\/p>\n<p>Anyway, following the &#8220;Make America [Something]&#8221; structure, we <em>could<\/em> have things like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>MABA &#8212; <em>Make America Barbaric Again<\/em> (for fans of Walt Whitman&#8217;s &#8220;barbaric yawp&#8221; and the rough-and-tumble days of the frontier), though in some respects we&#8217;ve crossed that bridge and burned it behind us; alternately, <em>Make America Brave Again<\/em> might be more appropriate<\/li>\n<li>MACA &#8212; <em>Make America Confederate Again<\/em> (since some progressives seem ready to ditch the current Constitution, maybe we should revert to the Articles of Confederation &#8212; or did you think I meant a different confederacy?), though it would probably be better to <em>Make America Constitutional Again<\/em><\/li>\n<li>MADA &#8212; <em>Make America Disciples Again<\/em> (for those of a missionary or Dominionist bent)<\/li>\n<li>MAHA &#8212; <em>Make America Harmonious Again<\/em> (for the &#8220;I&#8217;d like to teach the world to sing&#8221; crowd)<\/li>\n<li>MAMA &#8212; <em>Make America Magnificent Again<\/em> (maybe too close, thematically, to MAGA &#8230; wouldn&#8217;t want any copyright infringement issues), but could also be <em>Make America Megalomaniacal &amp; Arrogant<\/em>\u00a0?<\/li>\n<li>MANA &#8212; <em>Make America Neutral Again<\/em> (admit it: you thought it might say &#8220;nice&#8221; or &#8220;native&#8221; again, didn&#8217;t you?)<\/li>\n<li>MAPA &#8212; <em>Make America Proud Again<\/em> (since, as we learned a few years ago, some people don&#8217;t have a lot of pride in the USA)<\/li>\n<li>MARA &#8212; <em>Make America Righteous Again<\/em> (another one for the evangelicals, and particularly the fundamentalists)<\/li>\n<li>MASA &#8212; <em>Make America Serious Again<\/em> (on second thought &#8230;\u00a0<em>naaah<\/em>)<\/li>\n<li>MATA &#8212; <em>Make America Trustworthy Again<\/em> (i.e., a country with integrity: the best friend and worst enemy another country could ever have)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>None of those really fit the bill, though, do they?\u00a0Maybe this is one reason why I wouldn&#8217;t be very well-suited to politics.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m sure if I were at all serious about running for office, I would bring some smart people into a room and come up with something. But at the moment, if I were serious, I might just turn things around and have my campaign be about <em>GAMA: Giving America Meaning Again<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>What do I mean by that? Reminding us that the USA was &#8220;brought forth on this continent&#8221; for freedom, and that the steps we&#8217;ve been taking toward statist control are anathema to freedom. Reminding us what &#8220;life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness&#8221; mean &#8212; and what they don&#8217;t mean. Reminding us what government is supposed to do &#8212; and what it&#8217;s not supposed to do.\u00a0If, that is, anyone would ever want to listen to another voice crying in the wilderness.<\/p>\n<p>So, if you were an adviser to the Anti-Candidate, or on the Anti-Campaign team, what would <em>you<\/em> suggest as a good slogan?<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t forget: As <a href=\"http:\/\/www.graymanwrites.com\/blog\/audiobook-giveaways-plural\/\">noted here<\/a>, I&#8217;ve been running a series of giveaways for Audible downloads of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.audible.com\/pd\/Walking-on-the-Sea-of-Clouds-Audiobook\/B07P683X8H\"><em>Walking on the Sea of Clouds<\/em> audiobook<\/a>, and <strong>the last drawings will be held this Monday, the 15th of April.<\/strong> Sign up <a href=\"https:\/\/mailchi.mp\/graymanwrites\/seaofcloudsaudio\">at this link<\/a>!<\/p>\n<a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-24 synved-social-resolution-single 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continually effective in how it drives some people beyond crazy &#8212; that I started \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/in-search-of-a-new-political-slogan\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[43,169,435,405],"class_list":["post-2948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings","category-politics","tag-anti-campaign","tag-anti-candidate","tag-election","tag-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2948"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2950,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2948\/revisions\/2950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}