He didn’t have a snazzy hat to go along with the slogan, but Bill Clinton wanted to make America great again more than two decades before Donald Trump stumbled onto the idea.
You know who else wanted to #MakeAmericaGreatAgain? Bill Clinton. pic.twitter.com/FDlHsTqnwE
Chuck Thies (@ChuckThies) November 5, 2015
On Twitter Thursday morning, political consultant Chuck Thies posted a clip from a Bill Clinton TV ad from 1992 in which Clinton utters, word for word, the slogan Trump trademarked in 2012.
“I want to attack these problems and make America great again,” Clinton says in the grainy clip of the ad that was first released in February of 1992.
The populist rhetoric used in Clinton’s 1992 campaign ad is strikingly similar to that employed by Donald Trump in 2015.
“The Japanese prime minister says he feels sympathy for America, that we’ve lost our work ethic,” Clinton said, speaking directly to the camera. “That’s not our America. It’s not our people who failed – it’s our leaders.”
When Donald Trump announced his campaign for the presidency last June, he also brought up Japan and opined about how America fares poorly in comparison to the Asian country.
“When did we beat Japan at anything?” Trump asked. “They send their cars over by the millions, and what do we do? When was the last time you saw a Chevrolet in Tokyo? It doesn’t exist, folks. They beat us all the time.”
The most recent Real Clear Politics average of national polls shows Trump and former pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson tied for the lead in the Republican presidential primary.
