Donald Trump’s presidential campaign sent no less than 13 emails attacking Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) after DeSantis announced his presidential campaign. Those attacks were buttressed by many more social media posts attacking the governor that Trump once endorsed and still takes credit for getting elected back in 2018.
But one attack in particular really caught my eye: an email sent to the media with the subject: “Ron DeSantis Blatantly Plagiarizes President Trump’s ‘Great American Comeback.’”
“Amid a catastrophic failure to launch, Ron DeSantis announced his candidacy with ‘Great American Comeback,’ a phrase stolen from President Donald J. Trump’s 2020 State of the Union address,” the email read. “Perhaps, the DeSantis communications staff was pre-occupied [sic] attempting to extinguish the flames of their candidate’s announcement to come up with their own message.”
The message was accompanied by a link to a video with the “evidence” of “plagiarism.”
Ron DeSantis Copies President Trump's "Great American Comeback" pic.twitter.com/huS4DHN8Ff
— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) May 25, 2023
Plagiarism? Really? Trump should know better than to accuse someone of plagiarizing a slogan because he was accused of doing the same thing during his first presidential campaign with “Make America great again.”
Without a doubt, Donald Trump has turned “Make America great again” into a brand of its own. He uses it in every speech. He has it on signs, hats, shirts, and pretty much every other possible merchandise it can be slapped onto. But he was far from the first politician to use it. Ronald Reagan used the slogan in his acceptance speech at the 1980 Republican National Convention.
“It is time to put Americans back to work; to make our cities and towns resound with the confident voices of men and women of all races, nationalities, and faiths bringing home to their families a decent paycheck they can cash for money,” Reagan said. “For those without skills, we’ll find a way to help them get skills. For those without job opportunities, we’ll stimulate new opportunities, particularly in the inner cities where they live. For those who have abandoned hope, we’ll restore hope, and we’ll welcome them into a great national crusade to make America great again!”
The slogan was also used on buttons and posters.
Trump 2023: Ron DeSantis stole my slogan pic.twitter.com/4Lgwe6mWn4
— Matt Margolis (@mattmargolis) May 25, 2023
It was also used in a campaign ad:
According to Wikipedia, “make America great again” has been used in politics for decades. Barry Goldwater used it in 1964, and Bill Clinton used it in 1992. Despite this, Trump insisted back in 2015 that he made up the slogan on his own. “The line of ‘Make America great again,’ the phrase, that was mine, I came up with it about a year ago, and I kept using it, and everybody’s now using it, they are all loving it,” Trump said. “I don’t know I guess I should copyright it, maybe I have copyrighted it.”
It’s one to criticize an opponent on policy, it’s another to just haphazardly throw any absurd attack in the hopes something will stick.
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