Sloganeering: MAGA & BBB – Strange Bedfellows

What’s in a slogan? Better yet, who’s behind two of the more popular slogans today?

Make America Great Again

Who in America doesn’t know what MAGA stands for? We’ve seen the red hats and heard the phrase time and again. Donald Trump descended an escalator in 2015 with the promise to make America great again.

Trump coined the slogan Make America Great Again, right? Wrong. When Ronald Reagan ran for president in 1980, his slogan was, ‘Let’s Make America Great Again’. Even before Reagan, Berry Goldwater was spouting ‘Make America Great Again’.

Make America Great Again has been used numerous times by different people for various purposes. Even Octavia Butler, African American sci-fi writer included ‘make America great again’ in her novel, ‘Parable of the Talents’. However, she used it in a pejorative and anti-Christian context. 

Former president Trump was given four years to make America great again. How has that worked out? Is America great again? Do you really believe that, given four more years, Trump can MAGA? Or, given four more years, do you really believe that Joe Biden and/or Kamala Harris can, BBB.

Build Back Better

‘Build Back Better’ is another slogan you’ve probably heard. That slogan appeared in Joe Biden’s campaign adds when ran for the presidency in 2020. Shall we attribute BBB to Biden? I recall seeing ‘Build Back Better’ on former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s podium during one of his speeches. Plus, BBB has been a mantra of liberals long before Biden ran for office.

Many conservatives have been trying to pin the tail of BBB on Claus Schwab’s World Economic Forum. The WEF is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The WEF deserves a tail pinning, as do many conservatives for group-think and regurgitating tired talking points. But Build Back Better is just a word salad for stale, repackaged ideas. The WEF’s Fourth Industrial Revolution might possibly the Third Reich 2.0. But that’s a conversation for another time.

When ideas requiring thoughtful conversation are reduced to a slogan or acronym, meanings get lost, agendas get hidden. Get to know the purpose behind these snippets of American 21st century lexicon:

• Love is Love: gay agenda
• BLM: Victim’hood’
• A woman’s right to choose: Abortion and infanticide
• Climate change: Climactic change
• Transgender (aka: What is a woman?): child mutilation
• MAGA: Some people say that MAGA really means, Make America white again. What say ye? 

Make America great again and build back better are two sides of the same coin. Both are bedfellows who look to return to a time when great and better were not the predominant experience of many Americans. Newsflash! We’re being played by both sides.

I can understand why some people want to return to the past since the future looks so bleak. There is indeed a dark future for those who don’t know or believe the Bible. The scriptures are quite clear that the *last days, of which we’ve entered, will be filled with much chaos, confusion, danger and death.

On the other hand, there’s really good news for those who know Jesus. If they have taken the time to study the scriptures, they understand that their best days are just around the corner.

Jesus said, Don’t let your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.” Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

John 14:1-6

*The last days began approximately 2,000 years when Jesus died on the cross, rose from the dead, ascended to heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to indwell believers on the day of Pentecost. Now, we are living in a special time in world history. Some people call this the last of the last days. Without setting a date for the return of Jesus, I believe we could meet Him in the clouds at any moment.

The ABC’s