Recently Gov. Cuomo (D-NY) said America “was never that great.” Is this a common sentiment among those on the Left?
Let’s throw in that we were one of the last nations to eliminate slavery and Jim Crow laws existed until relatively recently.
That’s just scratching the surface of what keeps the nation from true greatness.
Trump’s idea of greatness is a huge step backwards.
What he was trying to say is that Donald Trump’s vision of “greatness” is deeply flawed. America shouldn’t want to be great the way Donald Trump defines great.
Cuomo expanded on his original comment the next day:
Cuomo was specifically addressing Trump’s disdain for minorities or the ways in which America has not always respected diversity. In truth, the way America has treated minorities is, not specifically, too good.
I think in Trumpland declaring something to be great makes it great. It’s like a magic trick involving a blindfold.
Or doing the vanishing doorway trick in front of dogs.
Speaking for myself as a liberal, the greatness of America is in certain American ideals and in its potential, not in its past.
There is no point in America’s past that is good enough to go back to, so in that sense “make America great again” is a nonsensical statement. There is no “great” in the past that can happen “again.”
What makes America great is its capacity to become better than it is.
Yes, America was the greatest. But what made us great in the past is not what will make us great in the future. Natural resources and the room to exploit them, a relatively homogeneous majority population with ample immigration to continue the expansion, and a democratic system of government. Was it perfect? Of course not. Native Americans and minority groups were openly discriminated against. Pollution and environmental degradation were rampant. Political corruption would regularly rear its head. But we tried to rise above those things with the rule of law. We were making great strides in all of these areas. Until recently. Now public lands are being sold for political favors, asbestos is the newest thing and oh yeah, we should probably start making cars inefficient again. Far right groups are now openly espousing their hatred because their leader says they are very fine people.
What could make us great again would be to have the happiest, healthiest population in the world. We could lead the world in the things we used to lead in. Technology, invention, charity, democratic ideas. Leadership.
But instead we have the Me First ideas of the republican party. “Why should I have to pay taxes so that you can eat? . Why shouldn’t my beliefs be yours? Why shouldn’t we pollute the country? White people really are better. You shouldn’t have insurance if you work as a cook.”
All of those things are what the Republican party has become. They point to the current economy as justification for dismantling what has taken decades to achieve. They forget that the economy was doing just fine with all those taxes and rules and regulations in place.
Honestly I though this was a common opinion of the right. Conservatives (especially Trump) are always talking about how screwed up America is while the left seems to think it is a pretty great country. This is just my opinion from listening to stump speeches and the like.
It’s now become an annual tradition for me to reference Peter Beinart’s article The War over Patriotism, which was published in Time Magazine back in 2008. I’ve never seen another explanation of this fundamental difference between conservatives and liberals that is as simple and as eloquent.
I think America has always been great in its ideals, not so great in its execution. “…all men are created equal…” was a great ideal in its time, but Americans still owned slaves. The Civil War wasn’t great, neither was, for example, the Vietnam War, nor how we were basically suckered into it. But, we’ve always had great goals and seemed to (mostly) sincerely strive for those goals. Women’s suffrage, the end of Jim Crow were all great stepping stones that moved us toward our stated goals.
Now, it’s certainly the case that there have always been many, many nations much worse than us, either on purpose (through strongmen, corruption, dictatorships) or through circumstance (abject poverty, lack of resources, civil war).
All that said, I think the important thing is to remove all context and try a back-handed accusation that liberals think America isn’t great. I’m sure that’s what Fox News, for example, is doing. “You didn’t build that” all over again. What a crock.
When the president says Make America Great Again, was he agreeing with Cuomo, that America is not great? Are we great now, according to him? When weren’t we?
That’s what people should have been asking Trump when he was running, “Mr Trump, are you saying America is not a great country?”
Because isn’t that a necessary prelude to Making America Great Again? Saying it isn’t currently great?
Reagan said the same thing when he was running; “Let’s Make America Great Again”. So I guess Reagan didn’t believe America was a great country either.
Here’s my impression of the common leftist sentiment, as brief as possible.
“America has done many great things. It has also left people out of those great things and done some absolutely horrible things. We celebrate past greatness while demanding - not wishing for or idly parroting patriotic slogans about - everybody get included equally in its greatness.”
That sentiment does not seem to be common on the right. It is perhaps the one thing that separates left and right the most. The left feel, to greater or lesser degrees, that those who don’t accept that sentiment can’t be accepted as decent human beings. So the left will undoubtedly continue to demand that the right live up to the words they mouth - and expect that they will fail to do so.
That said, Cuomo’s phrasing was as stupid as Guliani’s “Truth isn’t truth.” In the world of memes and ripping words out of context, both statements will come back to haunt them.
This Facebook diarrhoea is unworthy of this forum.
Facebook diarrhea? The link in the OP is from CNN. The video is a segment of a speech by the Governor of New York. Hardly some rando off Facebook (although I sincerely wish he were just some nut spewing his nonsense on Facebook).
If you were to hazard a guess, which party do you think currently has more of its members believing that America is “on the wrong track”?
You “carelessly” removed all but the out of context part of the quote that was most damning.
Not to worry, I supplied the context upthread.
You call this “expanded on”? It sounds more like a reversal.
One day: America “was never that great.”
Another day: “Of course America is great and of course America has always been great. No one questions that.”
I posted a link to the video from CNN’s website. I didn’t feel like trying to transcribe all the “context”. Feel free to supply as much as you like.
Again, it’s not a reversal of the ACTUAL CONTEXT that you left out of the quote, both in the OP and again here.
Post 2. Or do you not read threads?
No need to transcribe. There’s a neat function that nay computer can do. It’s called “copy and paste”.
Works on quotes of any size.