Trump's catch phrase ("you can't get a better one") of May 2020 was an admission of failure. It took Trump more than one month to realize that.
Mark McKinnon, Vanity Fair,
May 25, 2020:
Earlier this month, Trump declared that "Transition to Greatness" is a phrase we're going to hear a lot about because he's decided it's the perfect reelection slogan. ...
As the former chief media adviser to three presidential campaigns (two for George W. Bush, one for John McCain), I pay attention to these things. ... As a campaign theme ["Make America Great Again"] was ideal for Trump in 2016. Simple but clear. Loaded with meaning. Fundamentally, his message to voters was: Due to reasons mostly beyond your control (immigration, technology, globalization), America has left you behind. I'll take you back to a country you recognize, a country in which you'll prosper. ...
It was no surprise, then, when Trump announced that his reelection-campaign theme would be "Keep America Great." On brand. Direct but sort of meta. He was saying that he'd made America great. And he'd keep it that way. ...
So, count me among the perplexed that Trump, who clearly considers himself a marketing genius, suddenly announced on May 8 that he was changing his theme to "Transition to Greatness." He described his decision this way: "It's a great term. Just came out at this meeting. That's right. It came out by accident. It was a statement and it came out and you can't get a better one. We can go to Madison Avenue and get the best, the greatest geniuses in the world to come up with a slogan but that's the slogan we're going to use. Transition to Greatness."
I believe that any bipartisan parsing of the statement would conclude that its basic meaning is: We are not currently great. But we are going to get there at some point. We are on a general trajectory toward greatness. The implication is that we are not currently great, even though Trump promised us we would be. Moreover, even though Trump had promised to keep America great, he was now saying we're not even going to do that because we aren't, in fact, great yet. Instead, he is saying: We're going to transition to all the greatness he'd been promising during the last election. We just have to wait for it. It's a bit like Trump's coronavirus policy: We're fine…Let me be clear: We're not fine, but we're going be fine very soon…Oops, hang with me on this, it's gonna be quite a while till we're fine.
David A. Graham, The Atlantic,
May 26, 2020:
"Transition to Greatness" is a confession of failure, a corporate-style euphemism that tries to spin a collapse as a success ...
[T]he phrase is a flop, both as coinage and as messaging. Start with the language: Is there anything less exciting than a transition? There's a reason Barack Obama didn't offer "transition" you could believe in, because nothing inspires less enthusiasm. It's flat, dull, and corporate—the sort of language that executives use when they're trying to spin a setback as a minor blip on the way to success, which is of course exactly what Trump is doing here. It's not hat material.
"Transition to Greatness" is bad political rhetoric too. Trump said he'd make America great. Now he's acknowledging that since America isn't great, he either couldn't make it great, or he failed to keep it great—betraying the two simple guarantees of the past two slogans.
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May 7, 2020
I'm viewing the third quarter as being a very important quarter because that's—as I said, that'll be a transition. I think you could almost say a "transition into greatness," because I think next year we're going to have a phenomenal year—a phenomenal year, economically.
May 8, 2020
So what we've done has been incredible. We're going to continue to do it. We're going into transition. And I call it "transition to greatness." It's going to be transition to greatness because we're going to do something very fast, and we're going to have a phenomenal year next year. Third quarter, transition. Fourth quarter is going to be good. There's tremendous pent-up demand, and next year we're going to have a phenomenal year. ...
So we're looking at the transition to greatness. And I think it's starting right now. It's really what it is. It's a — it's a great term. It just came out at this meeting. That's right. It came out by accident. It was a statement and it came out and you can't get a better one. We can go to Madison Avenue and get the best — the greatest geniuses in the world to come up with a slogan, but that's the slogan we're going to use: "Transition to Greatness." And it's starting right now. ... But, so, it's the transition to greatness. That's where we are. That's where it's starting right now. [Q: So if unemployment is at 14 percent now, perhaps going as high as 20 percent, where do you think that will be in the fourth quarter?] I think the number is going to be a great number. I can't — I'm not going to say exactly what. I can say, over a period of time, it's going to be where it was. Maybe better. You can't get much better ... But it will be, I think — I expect it to be where it was. The demand is going to be tremendous. And next year is going to be a tremendous year. The fourth quarter is going to be very good, maybe better than that. The transition is going to be very interesting, but you're going to see some very good numbers coming out of the third quarter. It's a transition. I call it the transition to greatness. We're going to have a great year next year. You'll see.
Two other people, Rep. Warren Davidson from Ohio and Rep. Scott Perry from Pennsylvania also used the phrase on May 8:
Davidson: "Definitely an honor to be included on this task force and be here really to work with you to help this transition to greatness. You've had great messages."
Perry: "Mr. President, thank you so much for your — your bold, visionary, decisive leadership. It has made a huge difference ... It has been a lifeline ... I will tell you, in the transition to greatness, what I don't think we did envision is the same bold vision and leadership that you've had in our — some of our state governors. ... So — so to transition to greatness ... you tried to do the right thing. ... And finally, in this transition to greatness, Mr. President, China — once we get through this, there must be an accountability. There must be an accountability."
May 11, 2020
I want to see a payroll tax cut. I want to see various things that we want. ... We'll see what happens. But as I said, it's a transition, and it's a — this is really going to be, in my opinion — we'll see, but I think it's going to be something that's going to be very special. It's a transition to greatness, and greatness is next year, right from the beginning. I think we're going to do fantastically well. I view the third quarter, as I said, as a transition quarter. It could be pretty good, but a transition quarter. Toward the end of the fourth quarter, you're going to see some numbers that are going to be tremendous, I think. And next year you're going to have potentially the kind of numbers that you saw before, and maybe even better, because there is that pent-up demand that is — you know, a lot of people wanted to do things. They were ready to do things, and they've had to hold back because of the virus. So I think you're going to have, with that pent-up demand, a phenomenal year next year, unless somebody messes it up by coming along and raising taxes — doubling, tripling, quadrupling your taxes. Like a certain party, namely the Democrats want to do. You'll mess it all up. You know, we had the greatest in the world. I presided – this administration presided over it. It got great for a reason. And we'll do it again, and we'll do it very quickly and very easily. I see that happening.
["
pent-up demand" has also been a recurring (and annoying) phrase]
May 14, 2020
Joining us today are a few of the workers who have kept our hospitals supplied through this crisis and take part in a great, great rebuilding that's going forward. I say it's the "transition to greatness." The transition is the third quarter. The fourth quarter is going to do very well. And next year is going to be through the roof. We have to get your governor of Pennsylvania to start opening up a little bit. You have areas of Pennsylvania that are barely affected, and they have — they want to keep them closed. Can't do that.
May 18, 2020
Because, again, it was artificially turned on and off. But now it's off, and we're going to turn it back on. It's been turned on as of — I don't know, it almost feels like today is the first day. I think, last week, it didn't feel the same. Now it feels good. People are starting to go out. They're opening. They get it. We understand the disease much better than we did when it first came in. Nobody understood it. Nobody has ever seen it before. And it feels much different. I mean, today is almost like the first day. But the expression that we like to use — right? — "transition to greatness."
Also: Brooke Rollins, acting director of the United States Domestic Policy Council:
I am struck by the stories of true American Dreams. ... I'm also struck by this President and Vice President's commitment to our most vulnerable populations and their American Dream … This President is the jobs President. I think that none of us, other than maybe my boss, realized the economy that we would achieve in just three short years, where there were more people — more jobs available than people to fill them. And what I am so encouraged by is the resoluteness and the conviction of this President ... and working alongside all of you, as we bring this country back to even greater heights than we ever knew possible — the transition to greatness — is really what America and the American Dream is all about.
May 20, 2020
And we're going to open up very big. We're going to open up. I call it "transition to greatness." That's what it is. It's a transition to greatness. And when Larry Kudlow tells you the numbers, those are really surprisingly good numbers this early in. I mean, we're doing very well. I think it's going to be something special. ... I mean, it's been terrific.
May 26, 2020
We're making very good progress on the economy. The numbers are better than anybody would have anticipated. And certainly I think that's been reflected in the stock market, which had a very big day. And it's over 25,000. And when you think 25,000 is a very high number, when you think that it was at 29,000 and now it's at 25, that's a very big day. It's up very substantially over the last six months. So we had a very big day. But people are seeing what's happening. And they're seeing there is a pent-up demand as I was predicting and you're going to see it more and more. We call it the transition to greatness and it really is. We're going to have a third quarter that's going to be good. We're going to have a fourth quarter that has the potential to be really good. And we're going to have one of the best years we've ever had next year. That's what we see.
June 5, 2020
Earlier today, it was announced that the U.S. economy added 2.5 million jobs in May. It was supposed to lose 9 million, you know, during this period — transition period. I call it "transition to greatness" ... And our stock market is booming, and our jobs are booming. ... It's amazing. It's amazing. ... So we absolutely shattered expectations. And this is the largest monthly jobs increase in American history. American — think of that: That's a long time, right?
Trump has not mentioned those three magic words since June 9.
The amazing slogan that was such genius "you couldn't get a better one" was abandoned after only 34 days. Trump used the phrase on a grand total of 13 days.
It did pop up in two later press conferences, though.
Two days after Trump's final "transition" tweet (June 11, 2020), Police Chief Vernell Dooley, of Glenn Heights, Texas, said: "We are a country of very good departments, but we need to be a country of great departments. And this message today is about the
transition to greatness. We have an opportunity in this country to transform the future of law enforcement."
More than two weeks later (June 26, 2020), after the phrase had clearly been consigned to mothballs, Ivanka Trump blurted it out: "I'm really excited about ... reform[ing] our federal hiring practices as we think about building that inclusive American economy as we
transition to greatness."
