I think you’d be be hard-pressed to convince anyone familiar with the English language that going from “never” to “always” isn’t a reversal. You’re certainly failing to do so with me.
In some ways I think so. And its nothing to be ashamed of.
America has a lot of flaws. Lots of us would rather be honest about those flaws and try to fix them rather than just resort to jingoism.
Also on a wide range of important metrics, the US lags the rest of the developed world and is now starting to lag behind some middle income nations.
Health care, womens rights, journalist freedom, income equality, medical leave, crime, police behavior, infrastructure, race relations, etc.
Are you just blind to the word “context”? Or allergic to it?
I’m one who thinks “both sides” can be accused of blaming America. Sure, there are liberals who will agree that America is not great (as it can be) because it fails to implement the ideals it espouses - too much bigotry and unfair discrimination. But there are certainly plenty of right wingers who love to lament how America has deteriorated. Whether it’s the quality of our products, the toughness or integrity of our people, or the fate of our society, there is plenty of disappointment expressed by the right. In fact, Fox News is predicated on peddling fear in our time, which presupposes that things are not great.
Thats because he got negative reactions so he got afraid and backed off.
When Trump says ‘make America great again’ he means return America to an age when white christian men were the peak of the socioeconomic totem pole and everyone else accepted it. Trumps MAGA is a rejection of egalitarianism and multiculturalism and an embrace of white nationalism.
Its sad. Trump can offer all the white nationalist dog whistles he wants and nobody blinks an eye. But be honest and say ‘America is a deeply flawed nation and always has been, but we can work to make it better’ and people recoil, so Cuomo has to offer simplistic pablum for the masses the next day.
Needing to be spoonfed simplistic propaganda shouldn’t be a positive trait. But sadly in America it is.
Neither, but I don’t believe the word magically turns a reversal into something else.
Sure, which is why I called it a “reversal”. It amazes me that some here would dispute something as obvious as that, but here we are.
HurricaneDitka, several of us have answered your question. Do you have any response to that?
What was it that Michael Kinsley said? A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth. An obvious truth he isn’t supposed to say.
The problem with arguing whether America is “great” or not, or was “great” or not, is that nobody ever defines what great means. Don’t we need some sort of definition first? Otherwise, it just becomes boilerplate cheering.
Post 2. I quoted what he followed his first remark with, not the so-called reversal that came much later.
You don’t need to transcribe, it’s quoted in the text of the article.
Yes, several posters gave sincere and thoughtful responses (I consider yours among them) that ran the gamut from some agreement to disagreement. Thank you. I particularly liked the “War Over Patriotism” article.
How would you define it?
I have to admit that I was taken aback. Not over the sentiment, but over the political ham handedness. Sure, you can argue that it was taken out of context and that there’s a valid point about the failure of America to live up to its ideals. But this isn’t Cuomo’s first rodeo. He’s as savvy a politician as there is, and he had to know as soon as those words left his mouth that he was going to get hammered for it and any more complicated point he was trying to make would be lost.
It reminded me of W.'s bumble where he said, “fool me once, shame you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.” In the middle of saying it, he realized that the quote that opponents would play over and over again was him saying, “shame on me.” And so he improvised – poorly. Politicians simply have to know that their words will be taken out of context and comport themselves accordingly.
Great for whom? Clearly not the natives who were already here, or the slaves, or many of the women.
What a simplistic way to dredge up a controversy.
There does seem to be a double standard. When a Republican like Reagan or Trump says America isn’t great, everyone accepts it as a statement directed specifically against their political opponents. But if a Democrats says America isn’t great, some people want to claim it’s an unpatriotic attack on the entire country.
You really can’t see the difference between “Make America Great Again” and “[America] was never that great”? Those statements are essentially synonymous in your mind?
I see one as a super simplistic, appealing to the white moronic masses, campaign slogan. And I see the other as ham fisted attempt to explain how stupid the first is. And I still see you completely ignore the context of the 2nd.
This. “Make America Great Again” implies (a) that the US used to have certain characteristics that it no longer has, and (b) that those characteristics made it “great”. And maybe, just maybe, if we critically interrogate that proposition, we’ll find that the characteristics that Trump invokes with this slogan were not characteristics that ever made the US “great”.
So, it’s not well-expressed. “America was never that great” doesn’t mean that America was never great; just that it was never great in that way, i.e. the way that Trump’s slogan attempts to suggest.
Is this a common attitude “on the left”? I’d imagine it’s a common attitude among the rational. Quantifying the overlap between those two groups is left as an exercise for the student.
“Make America Great Again” assumes that this nation had greatness at some point in the past. If you believe that America, due it’s serious flaws like ethnic cleansing of the Natives, slavery, and so forth was never that great then yes, I could see someone seeing those two as largely synonymous.
Personally - I think America has great ideals and has done great things, but we also have deep flaws and have done terrible things. I don’t want to return to the past, I want to build a better future.
OP reminds us of the simplistic insistence by right-wingers on simplistic soundbites. The detailed meaning of Cuomo’s comment was irrelevant to OP — he just hoped these five words would impress the impressionable.
(I am reminded of a recent thread where I tried to explain that it is misleading or disingenuous to include pension transfers from workers to retirees as “government spending” — one might as well include rent as “food budget” if one pays the rent bill via an ATM machine located inside a grocery store. All I got in response was some flippant sound-bite about simple arithmetic.)
If sound-bites are to be the be-all and end-all of modern American political “thought” I am not sure the Republicans will come out ahead!
Let me ask OP what he thinks about “Truth isn’t truth”.