MAGA Hat Discord
On this eve of our nation’s remembering the birth, life, and sacrifice of American civil rights activist, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., my thoughts turn toward perhaps the single most divisive article of clothing one could don in 2019:
The MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) hat.
Yes, this is America, and yes, as Americans, people have the right to choose to wear MAGA hats if they want, but those choosing to wear them run a high risk of either creating or exacerbating a divisive, volatile atmosphere (unless surrounded only by like-minded, MAGA-hat wearers, which, ironically, seems to be the ultimate goal of many who proudly sport the item).
Perhaps the volatility of the MAGA message involves its lack of clarity combined with the over-the-top, controversial, offensive words (also here and here) of its creator, Donald Trump.
On its face, the phrase, “Make America Great Again,” implies the return to some better time, of something being lost. However, the “good old days” were good for certain Americans and bad for others– which is a recipe for discord right from the start. From the August 31, 2017, Voices of America (VOA) article, “Is ‘Make America Great Again’ Racist?”:
Marketing consultant Eva Van Brunt, a critic of the president, says the malleability of the words “great” and “again” are a common marketing trick: using words that sound positive, but lack specific meaning.“By leaving a definitional vacuum around the word ‘great,’ it became very easy for groups to co-opt it, ascribing to it the meaning they wanted it to have,” Van Brunt says. “The same way a mother rests easy because her CONTINUE READING: MAGA Hat Discord | deutsch29
