The real meaning of Donald Trump -- Tom Englehardt/Le Monde Diplomatique
“Low-energy Jeb.” "Little Marco." “Lyin’ Ted.” "Crooked Hillary." Give Donald Trump credit. He has a memorable way with insults. His have a way of etching themselves on the brain. And they’ve garnered media coverage, analysis, and commentary almost beyond imagining. Memorable as they might be, however, they won’t be what last of Trump’s 2016 election run. That’s surely reserved for a single slogan that will sum up his candidacy when it’s all over (no matter how it ends). He arrived with it on that Trump Tower escalator in the first moments of his campaign and it now headlines his website, where it’s also emblazoned on an array of products from hats to t-shirts.
You already know which line I mean: “Make America Great Again!” With that exclamation point ensuring that you won’t miss the hyperbolic, Trumpian nature of its promise to return the country to its former glory days. In it lies the essence of his campaign, of what he’s promising his followers and Americans generally — and yet, strangely enough, of all his lines, it’s the one most taken for granted, the one that’s been given the least thought and analysis. And that’s a shame, because it represents something new in our American age. The problem, I suspect, is that what first catches the eye is the phrase “Make America Great” and then, of course, the exclamation point, while the single most important word in the slogan, historically speaking, is barely noted: “again.”
With that “again,” Donald Trump crossed a line in American politics that, until his escalator moment, represented a kind of psychological taboo for politicians of any stripe, of either party, including presidents and potential candidates for that position. He is the first American leader or potential leader of recent times not to feel the need or obligation to insist that the United States, the “sole” superpower of Planet Earth, is an “exceptional” nation, an “indispensable” country, or even in an unqualified sense a “great” one. His claim is the opposite. That, at present, America is anything but exceptional, indispensable, or great, though he alone could make it “great again.” In that claim lies a curiosity that, in a court of law, might be considered an admission of guilt. Yes, it says, if one man is allowed to enter the White House in January 2017, this could be a different country, but — and in this lies the originality of the slogan — it is not great now, and in that admission-that-hasn’t-been-seen-as-an-admission lies something new on the American landscape.
Donald Trump, in other words, is the first person to run openly and without apology on a platform of American decline. Think about that for a moment. “Make America Great Again!” is indeed an admission in the form of a boast. As he tells his audiences repeatedly, America, the formerly great, is today a punching bag for China, Mexico... well, you know the pitch. You don’t have to agree with him on the specifics. What’s interesting is the overall vision of a country lacking in its former greatness.
http://mondediplo.com/openpage/the-real-meaning-of-donald-trump
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I had it all ready to post, came here, and saw you had beat me to it! 
And, he was so stiff and Unlike "The Donald"...I thought he'd been "Captured"...if you get my drift.
IOWD's.... He seemed so "Ordinary," reading from the Teleprompter, that he lost what made "Trump/Trump."
It's the fault his new Campaign Manager who has some kind of shady background was what the report I saw, said. He's torn between his original Campaign Guy who had the incident with the reporter and the new one with foreign ties to the shady stuff. 
I did see a discussion afterwards with General Barry McCaffery on MSNBC (the General who was Paid by CNN aways back) who has his own personal business interests that he didn't disclose when he was promoted as CNN's "Military Consultant." I assume MSNBC paid him more so he switched over.
He seemed to be very pleased, in general, with what Trump said, acknowledging that he thought it was a prepared speech with only a little of the Real Donald thrown in. Jeffrey Goldberg was also on the panel. I assumed his speech was to reassure the MIC Community that "The Donald" wouldn't be heavy on the Big Button or Red Phone or whatever they use now to start the nukes. They mentioned he was favorable to partnership with Putin. 
I'll have to force myself watch the "YT" of the whole thing to see everything he mentioned in his speech.
