“Make America Great Again!”…the People’s Opinion
Editor’s Note: The following article was written by Kendra Parke, a student in Professor Koslosky’s Journalism Workshop class. You can find this article, along with other election coverage at HuskiesVote2016.wordpress.com.
Presidential nominee Donald Trump promises he will “Make America Great Again!” if he becomes president of the United States. However, what exactly does that mean?
We asked students at Bloomsburg University what a “great America” would look like to them: Eight students shared their views. Here’s what they had to say.
Equality is a must
Wayne Christian, freshman: “A great America would look like a place of complete equality where everyone could feel safe. A place free from racism, poverty, and violence.”
Bradley Hatch, sophomore, criminal justice: “A great America is a country with justice and equality. We are losing our sense of nationality and America is beginning to stray away from the morals that this country was founded upon, and until we begin to stop worrying about the rest of the world and start taking care of ourselves, America cannot become great again.”
Monica Delora, sophomore, mass communications: “It would be a place of actual equality and peace…America needs to become the place it used to be, where people came to live ‘the American dream.’ ”
Fatima Diallo, sophomore, mass communications: “Making America great again consists of having men and women equal in the workforce and also a decline in the rates of police brutality.”
‘Never been great’
Among the other four students who responded, there were some more diverse opinions.
Sophomore criminal justice major, Nicholas Libutti: “I do not believe that there is such a thing as a ‘great America’ that satisfies the needs of every citizen. I feel that Trump’s slogan is very opinionated and only fits to his ideas and that of his followers.”
Sophomore marketing major, Aly Manikas: “In my opinion America has never been great. People have been enslaved, treated unfairly and exploited for hundreds of years. When I hear Donald Trump say that he wants to ‘make America great again,’ it makes me think that he wants to go back to the times when women could not vote, when a black person and a white person could not use the same water fountain. Thinking that a politician would want to revert to a time of such agony and stress makes me think that they are not fit to run this country.”
Freshman political science major, Will Bagwell: “[A great America would be…] A country that stands for what they believe is right, and where we don’t identify ourselves by the person who we last voted for. A country that doesn’t scare so easily. A country that leads the rest of the world, and [that] everyone else looks to as an example.”
Junior speech pathology and audiology major, Taylor Hill: “A great America would be where our companies are located in the states to give job opportunities to all Americans. We would also get rid of the crooked politicians and our veterans would be cared for more than they are now. We would have a strong military and less crime, with harsher punishments to those who are guilty of crimes.”
Trump’s campaign slogan may have many heads spinning as to what exactly he means, but at the end of the day, every American has his or her own connotation of what a great America would look like and what we’d need to do to achieve it.
