Make America great again?

“Make America great again?” Exactly what does Donald Trump mean by that? We can only conclude that he thinks America is no longer a great nation. What has this guy been smoking?

Does Trump think our military power is in decline? Today the U.S. has the most awesome military force the world has ever seen. Ours is greater than the next eight nations combined and is almost four times more powerful than our nearest rival, China. We have ten nuclear-powered aircraft carriers to China’s one, and it’s out of date.

Is it wealth? Today America’s wealth is greater than the next five richest nations together. Considering that second-ranked China’s population is more than four times greater than ours, they are not even in the ball park in percapita wealth.

Maybe he means America’s domestic economy is lagging. But our annual economic production measured in GDP almost doubles China’s and is slightly larger than the entire European Union’s which has one-and-one-half times more people.

Although the United States does have the world’s largest national debt, when this is analyzed on a per-capita basis which indicates our ability to pay, it paints a different picture entirely. Wealthier societies, as wealthier people, can safely assume more debt.

Could Trump actually mean “Make America white again?” There is some indication of an appeal to xenophobic and racist elements in his rhetoric. Maybe he would like to take us back to the era of states’ rights, the code word for segregation. Although this isn’t post-racial America yet, appeals to racism are swaying fewer and fewer voters today, especially millennials. In fact, Trump is now making his own appeal to African American voters in certain areas.

Although he isn’t specific about the time during which he considers America to have been great, Trump could be talking about the fifties, the era in which he grew up in a rather privileged environment. The Korean War was over then, the economy was growing and Ike was in the White House. But then in 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Brown v Board decision that overturned the South’s Jim Crow laws, and all hell broke loose — church bombings, lunch counter sit-ins and racial violence. The 1950s were turbulent times for many, but maybe not for Donald.

America is currently behind the rest of the developed world in certain critical areas such as public education and health care availability. On a world comparison scale we rank 25th in math, 23rd in science, 20th in reading and 36th in health care. Why doesn’t Trump talk about this and maybe offer a solution?

In spite of its obvious defects we have made a health care start with Obamacare and we have the wherewithal to address the education issues. What we do on November 8th will indicate what is really important to us, what we really care about.

George B. Reed Jr., who lives in Rossville, can be reached by email at reed1600@bellsouth.net.