About
Make America Great Again is a slogan adopted by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for his 2016 United States presidential campaign. The phrase first gained online fame in July 2015 after Trump was photographed wearing a hat bearing the slogan during a visit to the Mexican border, and since then, it has been used by both Trump supporters and critics in various discussions about the candidate.
Origin
Donald Trump adopted “Make America Great Again”[1] as his official campaign slogan and simultaneously launched merchandise bearing the phrase in June 2015, shortly after announcing his bid for the Republican Party’s nomination in the 2016 United States presidential election. However, the slogan went largely unnoticed until Trump donned a hat during a visit to Laredo, Texas near the Mexican border in July 2015.
Precursor
“Let’s Make America Great Again” was first used as a campaign slogan by Ronald Reagan during his 1980 election campaign. Since then, it has often been used as a GOP refrain, most recently as part of the title of the 2011 book on Tea Party politics by Christine O’Donnell.[2] Trump has claimed to have authored the phrase, but has not produced any proof.[3]
Spread
Soon after photographs of Trump wearing the hat appeared in the mainstream media, users both began photoshopping new text onto the front of the hat, as well as ordering the hat in droves and using it in photographs, either ironically or not. The Washington Post reported on July 28th that the official hat had sold out from the retail location authorized to sell it; many bootleg versions became available online. [4][5]
Users on Instagram and Twitter began photographing themselves in the hat, often tagging the photo with the hashtag #MakeAmericaGreatAgain, which had over 7,600 posts as of August 10th, 2015 on Instagram.[6][7] In addition, Funny or Die published a collection on July 24th, 2015, of other slogans photoshopped onto the hat, which inspired similar photoshops to become popular on Tumblr.[8][9] On Reddit, user iamclaytonbigsby posted an image of Trump wearing the hat to /r/photoshopbattles, where it received 28 points.[10]
The trend of people wearing the hat as a photo fad was covered in The Hollywood Reporter, and the Sun Times, while the photoshop editing was written about in E! Online and Bloomberg News.[11][12][13][14] The hat itself has spawned two separate parody Twitter accounts, @trumphat, and @Donaldtrumphat, neither of which have more than a couple hundred followers as of August 10th, 2015.[15]
Various Examples
People Wearing the Hat
Hat Photoshops
Search Interest
External References
[2]Wikipedia – Troublemaker: Let’s Do What It Takes to Make America Great Again
[3]“Rolling Stone” – Donald Trump Claims Authorship of Legendary Reagan Slogan; Has Never Heard of Google
[4]The Washington Post – Donald Trump’s trucker hat has sold out. And it’s a good case study in campaign finance.
[5]Amazon – Search: Donald Trump Make America Great Again
[6]Instagram – Search: #makeamericagreatagain
[7]Topsy – Search: Trump Hat
[8]Funny or Die – Other Slogans On Donald Trump’s Hat
[9]Tumblr – Search: trump hat
[10]/r/photoshopbattles – PsBattle: Donald Trump and his hat
[11]The Hollywood Reporter – Donald Trump’s Hats Have Become an Internet Joke
[12]Sun Times – Trump Trucker Hats Are Taking Instagram by Storm
[13]E! Online – Donald Trump’s ‘’Make America Great Again’’ Hat Is at Least Uniting the Twitterverse in Mirth and Merriment
[14]Bloomberg – Donald Trump’s New Hat, Now With More Trumpisms
[15]Los Angeles Times – Donald Trump’s madcap hat has two parody Twitter accounts -- and trademark protection