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Making America great again is whatever it is in a person's mind. Most people can relate to happy times in their lives, not really understanding all the factors that drove that happiness at the time. Job security was certainly a factor -- the factory, the mine, a store or shop, a valued profession -- but also a place called home with community and church. Norman Rockwell's America perhaps and a false sense of entitlement that went with that so called "American exceptionalism".
There was a sense of complacency or comfort that set in with the middle class especially as they took for granted their economic status. They didn't realize the forces at work over many years to undermine that status. I have referenced the Lewis Powell Memorandum in this website, in which Lewis Powell in 1971 outlined a plan for "taking our country back" but from the viewpoint of the corporatist who saw the free enterprise system under attack by liberals. It is an interesting memo and should be read to better understand the corporatist movement that it set in motion and is still alive today in Trumpism. Perhaps the highlight of the movement was the election of Ronald Reagan as president and whose drastic tax reforms helped drive the inequality that we are seeing today. The election of Trump is the frosting on the cake.
Reagan also set in motion a kind of warped thinking that set the American middle class against itself with his often repeated slogan from his inaugural address: "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." That and his fictitious "welfare queen". George Bush and now Donald Trump carries on that mission.
I should not lay all the blame on Powell or Reagan or Trump, however. For many Americans, especially those lacking a higher education or skills, what has affected their economic status even more is their inability to adapt to market forces including globalization and new technologies. The world is changing and they feel frustration at being left behind, much the same as earlier generations felt the change from the "horse and buggy" era.
Their sense of anxiety made them prey for the unscrupulous politicians who made promises that they would never be able to deliver upon. And I am not only talking about Donald Trump, who skillfully played upon people's emotions telling them what they wanted to hear but with no strategy or plan on how to accomplish those "promises".
There are many things that divide Americans now that are skillfully being exploited by those in power. They can do that because much of the public is ignorant of the functions of government and can be easily exploited in the "blame game". Education would certainly help, but I know some highly educated people whose underlying prejudices have manifested themselves in tribal politics and single emotional issues that trump critical thinking.
Understanding our government would be a helpful first step. And then voting intelligently.