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By Pete, Washington Examiner
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo this week joined the ranks of prominent Democrats who have shown that attacking President Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan isn't as easy as it looks.
Speaking in New York City Wednesday night, Cuomo tried to make the point that America can always do better and needs to do more to stop discriminating against women. But instead he said America was "never that great," prompting shocked gasps in the audience.
“We have not reached greatness. We will reach greatness when every American is fully engaged," he said. "We will reach greatness when discrimination and stereotyping against women, 51 percent of our population, is gone."
Cuomo was quickly criticized, and his press aide had to correct him by saying, "The governor believes America is great. But Fox News replayed Cuomo's slip-up for much of the day Thursday and openly wondered how potential presidential candidates in 2020 could win after saying America isn't great.
Trump's slogan, MAGA for short, has so far proven to be bulletproof, and some who try to put a twist on the president's slogan can quickly appear to be arguing that America isn't great.
[post_ads]House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., occasionally criticizes Trump by saying he wants to use immigration policy to "make America white again." But that bit of wordplay only seems to stick with Trump's most ardent left-wing opponents.
That kind of tactic has also backfired. In 2017, just before Trump was inaugurated, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., went on Twitter to argue that Trump's plan to repeal Obamacare would "make America sick again."
But Schumer instead tweeted that Americans should tell Republicans, "Don't #MakeAmericaGreatAgain." Schumer's staff quickly took down the tweet and said it was a mistake.
During the 2016 campaign, the Clintons got in trouble trying to make fun of Trump's slogan. Hillary Clinton, the candidate, argued that when Trump said "Make America great again," that was really code for "Let's take America backwards."
Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, then got into the act when he said more explicitly that Trump's slogan was racist.
"[I]f you're a white Southerner, you know exactly what it means, don't you?" Bill Clinton said in 2016. “What it means is 'I'll give you an economy you had 50 years ago, and I'll move you back up on the social totem pole and other people down.'"
The only trouble was, Bill Clinton himself used "make America great again" on the campaign trail in 1991.
“I believe that together we can make America great again,” Bill Clinton said then. He said later in the campaign that voters should "make America great again economically, educationally, and socially."
Former President Barack Obama tried to address Trump's slogan as he campaigned for Hillary Clinton, not by criticizing it as the Clintons did, but by rejecting its entire premise.
Obama said in 2016 that, "I think America's pretty great." He later said, "America's pretty darn great right now."
But that "pretty great" claim seemed to fizzle, as Obama had presided over the weakest post-war economic recovery in history. All the while, Trump was making the argument that America ought to have been able to see growth above 3 percent per year, a mark Obama never reached.
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As hard as it's been for Democrats to attack MAGA, they've also had trouble coming up with their own slogan. They were mocked for their "Better Deal" slogan, a promise of "better skills, better jobs" that sounded like a Papa John's ad for "better ingredients, better pizza."
Just a few months ago, Schumer seemed to give in by accepting Trump's slogan and criticizing him for failing to live up to his MAGA promise, while trying to sneak in the Democrats' "Better Deal" slogan.
According to one potential Trump rival in 2020, the slogan might just be too good to attack. Former Trump aide Corey Lewandowski this week said former New York Mayor and multi-billionaire Mike Bloomberg might be Trump's toughest potential challenger, but last year, Bloomberg said Trump's slogan was nearly perfect.
Hillary Clinton "never got a real message out, whereas Donald had us saying ‘Make America Great Again,'" Bloomberg said then.
"I don't know what 'again' means," Bloomberg said. "But 'America' — that's patriotic. And 'great,' that's a good word. I thought, it's not quite that simple, but we do live in a world of 140 characters, and slogans matter."
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