One of the mantras that I hear regularly from folks is the need to “take back our country.” In fact, I heard two Republican candidates for office make that claim this week in a meeting I attended as the reason they are qualified to hold office.
I confess that I am clueless about many things, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, but I find myself wondering from what do we need to take our country back? Of course, I know the rhetoric that is spouted about on the news, but in all seriousness, I am having trouble discerning the specifics regarding a vision of what we want to return to. Are folks wanting to dial back to the 1940’s, when the New Deal reigned supreme but we were as united as a nation as we’ve ever been in supporting our troops at war? Are we looking to return to the roaring ’20’s, when there was a lot of fun but the divisions between rich and poor were as great as any time in our history? Some would suggest we need to return to the Reagan era, but Reagan engaged in deficit spending at great levels putting pressure on the budget. In all seriousness, I really am not understanding what we are trying to return to when we say we need to take our country back.
How would you define what it means to “take our country back?”
Only Wonder Understands 
I always hear it as, “We need to take our country back(wards).” Which is why it is almost immediately a turn-off to me.
it’s got to do with … ownership and control … mostly control … not necessarily a timeframe…
I agree that it’s about control, but what does that control look like? How does that control address the problems of the world? Being in control doesn’t mean anything if the people in control have no vision of where they want to go. Being the engineer of a train without tracks still leads to a train wreck. Paint me a vision of what “taking back the country” looks like, and then I can honestly decide if that is a vision I can buy in to.
Jay, I think that those who keep using those kind of lines want to remain as vague as possible because it continues the false narrative they promote. It also creates a false memory in the masses who think they remember a time called the “good ol’ days” when things were so much better and prayers were in the schools and everyone got along and no one had any problems. The reality is that there has never been a time of utopia or even near perfection in American history. It is a combination of memory and fantasy. But it feeds the masses what they want to hear and so the politicians keep using that language.
I think they want to “take the country back” from these “un-American” people who had the audacity to get elected President, etc. You know, the Muslim guy….