Bill Clinton: ‘Make America Great Again’ Code for ‘Taking America Back 50 Years’
While stumping for his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former President Bill Clinton called out Republican nominee-in-waiting Donald Trump by name, alleging the businessman was advancing a racist agenda.
He told the congregation at 24,000-member West Angeles Church of God In Christ that “Make America Great Again”—the Trump campaign slogan—was “a code saying” that means “way more than what it sounds like.” He said the slogan means that if voters elect Donald Trump, the economy will go back to “the way it was for you 40 or 50 years ago.”
“In other words, America wasn’t so great 40 or 50 years ago,” he said. “Including the parents of a lot of the people in this great congregation. The second problem with that is, they can’t do it. I see all these attractive young people and I think, Boy I’d like to be 20 again. Just to see what’s gonna happen. But it ain’t gonna happen.
“So we have to decide, are we going to try to promise people a past that can’t be achieved and wasn’t so hot for people or are we gonna create a future of shared prosperity where we live in the same community and relish our diversity? And where we are citizens together building a whole new chapter of greatness. It is about the future or past. Is it about unity or division? And what about this pesky old world out there? Are we going to wake up every day and look at it with bridges or walls.
“And that’s the whole deal. I believe that from the time the first human beings rose up on the planet they have been on a journey, for those of us who have faith we believe they have been on a long journey seeking God.”
See the full speech below.