Can President Trump "make America great again"?

“Great again.” The question is, how will we measure “great” and “again”? What were the halcyon days of the United States and in what ways?

The GDP Definition of “Great”— The White House, despite all its internal, warring factions, is defining “great” strictly in terms of economics: GDP, job numbers, and Americans’ disposable income (a questionable indicator of The American Dream). You would think that by paring down the dozens of issues that affect the U.S. and its people to these three would make it very easy to be “great.”

The Historical Definition of “Again”— But maybe, not great again; even during the Reagan years, people in the bottom tiers of the U.S. socioeconomic classes were struggling, some kinds of taxes were replaced by other kinds of taxes. Unemployment tends to follow international economic swings, so the fact that things actually got worse while Reagan was president is somewhat similar to what President Obama inherited as the globe was taking an economic dive (in large part due to financial institution over-extension with debt offerings). Again? Under FDR? Truman? Nixon? Reagan? Bush #1? Bush #2?

The 2017 Federal Budget Definition of “Great”— Almost every issue is now framed in terms of theories about what will make the U.S. GDP grow faster than that of other countries. The exceptions are increases in military funding, Dept. of Homeland Security funding, and a $1T investment in “infrastructure” (to be a shared expense with businesses that participate). “The Wall” is based on a different theory of economic benefits vs. the cost of construction, maintenance, and staffing. Drawing from the White House budget document, we can see the places where Americans can expect less:

• Major reduction in healthcare insurance availability and in healthcare services available.
• Reduced and eliminated financial institution regulatory oversight (reintroducing the circumstances that led to the financial institution collapse of 2007–2008)
• Substantial reduction in access to Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance, temporary financial assistance (aka “welfare”), and the Children’s Health Insurance Program for families living in poverty
• Substantial reduction in government oversight/administration of student loans
• Substantial reduction in funding for teacher training, after-school programs for children living in poverty, and programs designed to give children living in poverty and those with disabilities or other learning disadvantages a “boost” in completing their education and being prepared for post-high school education/training; move from support for public schools to greater support for private and religious K-12 schools
• Reduction in support for farmers/agriculture (plus the elimination of much of the workforce that plants, tends, and picks the crops)
• Reduction in retirement benefits for federal employees (other than senators and House representatives)

The devil is in the details. For example, a quick look at the spreadsheet in the budget document shows that the federal deficit decreases as percent of GDP for a couple years, and then it increases as percent of GDP. Another issue is whether the targets for these reductions are achievable. As an example, look at reductions in Medicaid as a way of understanding what’s behind some of these cuts. The major fraud committed with Medicaid comes from healthcare providers. (In Medicare, the major fraud is split between insurances billing for services not received by patients and healthcare providers delivering treatments that are not needed or are over-billed.) However, the “remedy” being offered in Congress and the White House is to reduce the number of people who are eligible for Medicaid. It’s not clear how remedying something other than the root cause of the problem will make things great for anyone other than those insurance companies and healthcare institutions that are unscrupulous.
And then there’s this: The theories about rapid GDP growth for middle- and working-class Americans and for the working poor are based on a premise that has been proven false: When corporations make more profit, their shareholders benefit, especially if they don’t expand their workforce. By law, corporations are required to maximize shareholder returns. The stock market rise is based on the belief that corporations will continue to make record profits, not that they will expand their workforce.

We’re already great! The U.S. is already great. In fact, in many ways, it’s the best it’s every been… even if you just look at GDP. Yes, the U.S. can get even better, but that’s different from claiming it’s not great now and it will be later. Unfortunately, “Make America great again!” has a sound bite advantage over “Make America even better than it’s ever been!” American nostalgia for what never was is infamously resistant to facts.

U.S. Quality of Character— Since the November election the rest of the world has been judging the U.S. more harshly. They had their frustrations with G.W. Bush and Barack Obama— frustrations that pale in comparison to what they’re feeling now. They’re judging the President and the 63 million Americans who voted for him because the White House’s notions of what makes a “great” country should include a lot more than GDP.
Let’s assume that a “great America” has something to do with the “quality of character” of the nation in the way that it treats its citizens, residents, and world neighbors. Quality of character includes being

• honest & prudent
• self-disciplined in behavior
• respectful of others
• collaborative
• well-informed
• generous/benevolent
• dependable
• persistent & consistent
• principled (making decisions and behaving based on fundamental ethical principles)
• benevolent/generous (of spirit and deed)
• responsible (taking responsibility for one's words and deeds, plus looking out for all Americans, in our case)

In other words, for the U.S. to be “great,” its leader(s) need to have these qualities of character. Of the eleven characteristics listed, President Trump demonstrates about one (persistent but not consistent; principled in some ways and lacking integrity in others— awarding 1/2 for each).

Quality of Character and Treatment of Americans— Further marginalizing people living in poverty, including the working poor (67% of those on Medicaid), taking funds from the public schools that working-class and poor families must depend on for a quality education, and increasing the financial assets of the upper class disproportionately more than that of the middle- and working-classes are actions that are contemptuous of many, if not most, Americans. This is a consistent mentality: The wealthiest nation on Earth should do whatever it can to accelerate its economic growth, even at the expense of others. And the wealthiest individuals in the U.S. should do whatever they can to accelerate their financial growth, even at the expense of the rest of the nation. This is not a mentality we normally associate with a high quality of character. It is selfish in terms of assets and power. It applies to many in the current White House.

Quality of Character and Treatment of Allies— Since the beginning of Donald Trump’s bid for the presidency, he has maligned, snubbed, and disrespected U.S. allies and their leaders while praising despots like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, and Rodrigo Duterte. His profound deficit in knowledge about world affairs is not just a deficit in being "well-informed"; it is actually a deliberate preference not to know the facts: He would not attend intelligence briefings after the election, deeming them a waste of his time; he says he does not like to read and prefers to base decisions on his “gut.” In a meeting with President Xi Jinping, Trump volunteered that ten minutes spent talking about North Korea introduced him to some of the complexities in dealing with Kim Jong-un and that government. (And that statement was given the same importance, by Trump, as noting that the chocolate cake they’d had was “fantastic.”) However, it is not just Donald J. Trump who is treating allies with disregard. There are others in the White House who are rabid nationalists (not just Steve Bannon, by the way). To be clear: Most members of the U.S. Congress, especially the Senate, recognize the importance of respectful and tactful international relations… especially with allies. They, too, represent the nation and, in that capacity, their quality of character should be acknowledged, at least in that regard.

Can President Trump make America great again? Probably not, unless we consider only GDP and not who within the U.S. benefits from that. Surely not, if we consider the quality of character of the nation’s leadership and the nation’s domestic and foreign policies.