The MAGA crowd has never answered the question: When, exactly, was America great?  What is the timeframe that they are so nostalgic for?   

Was America Great in the 40s and 50s?  WW II gave us the ‘greatest generation’, with inspirational stories of incredible heroism and bravery from the war front and from the home front. The post-war era gave us the baby-boom and an economic framework that enabled the rise of a strong middle-class; supported by the GI Bill, federally funded home loans and a robust labor movement.

There is a flip side to that era: Japanese internment camps, the Klu Klux Klan, laws that prevented women from having their own bank accounts.  Oh, and those government-backed programs that helped build America’s middle class?  They were generally only available to white men.  

Was America Great in the 60s?  After all, we saw the first man walk on the moon—an event I remember watching on our fuzzy black and white console TV! But, we also saw the slayings of JFK, RFK and Martin Luther King, and we watched grown men turn fire hoses on little black children in Birmingham.   

What about today? America is a country of great wealth, yet  40% of our citizens live in, or near, poverty.  How can we say we are great when so many of us don’t have reliable housing, food or access to health care? Today, the USA currently leads the world in deaths due to COVID 19. So, are we great yet?

Any era of American history that we choose is riddled with both great accomplishments and great oppression and cruelty. America has always been a land of contradictions. Any definition of greatness depends on the lens that is used to view the era.

The MAGA lens of greatness reflects a particularly narrow and xenophobic ‘love it or leave it’ brand of patriotism.  They demonstrate a sense of entitlement to American greatness as uniquely THEIRS.  No immigrants, feminists, ‘libtards’, people of color, Native Americans, gays, lesbians, or non-Christians are welcome in their imagined era of greatness.

They appear to be nostalgic for the days when there were no consequences for sexual assault or harassment–after all (white) ‘boys will be boys’.    

They appear to be nostalgic for the days when women were legally second-class citizens and were constrained further by narrow domestic social norms.

They appear to be nostalgic for the days when homosexuality was firmly in the closet.

They appear to be nostalgic for the days when industries could pollute our planet without restriction or consequences.

Above all else, the MAGA crowd misses the good ‘ole days when it would have been impossible for a black man to become President.  

They appear nostalgic for a much romanticized past when the power and authority of straight white men were absolute–when there was little risk of ‘others’ taking part in the American Dream.

The MAGA crowd is afraid of anyone who does not look like, sound like, love like or pray like themselves. These fears are stoked daily by their combative leader. tRump revels in stirring up division and conflict, and when there is no true conflict of interest, he creates one in order to keep his base in a continual state of rage and indignation–even if that anger ends up being directed at some poor Costco clerk who is just checking to make sure shoppers are wearing masks.

One can debate endlessly as to when America was at its peak of ‘greatness’. But one thing I am sure of: our current path is decidedly NOT leading towards ‘greatness’, no matter how rose-colored your glasses or your hat.