The whole premise underlying "Make America Great Again" was that at one time America was great. Other presidents, especially the liberal Democrats, made America not-great. Donald Trump would erase all that not-greatness since he alone had the deal-making ability to fix it all. After two plus years of Trump, apparently America is great again since the new improved slogan for 2020 is "Keep America Great". This causes me much flummoxation (yes, I created that word all by myself). If America in 2016 was so anti-great, as Trump laid out for us in his inaugural address referring to "carnage", among other things, are we really supposed to believe that he reversed all the horribleness that he railed against? A charitable examination of his record shows that he signed a lot of executive orders, mostly reversing a lot of President Obama's executive orders, primarily negating environmental and safety regulations; declawed the individual mandate in the ACA; and worked with the Republicans in Congress to ram through an ill-considered tax code change that didn't come close to achieving what was advertised. Although, if you believe his claims, the last two years were a time of historic accomplishments. He also regularly claims credit for others' accomplishments (The Veterans Choice Act was signed into law in 2014 by President Obama after being pushed through Congress by Sen. John McCain, yet Trump claims that he accomplished it) So, it stands to reason that if America was such a mess in 2016, it's still a mess.
One of the things about politics is in order to unseat an incumbent, or the incumbent's party, you have to make a good case that things are bad enough that the country needs a change. If the Republicans are in power, the Democrats are going to paint a picture of a broken system that they are qualified to repair, and the reverse is true when Democrats are in power. Partisans are also going to get offended when the other party points this out and suggest that the other guy isn't patriotic, that he "hates America". Some of you may remember the outcry in 2008 when Michelle Obama said that she was "finally proud to be an American" during the 2008 election cycle. While Mrs. Obama was clearly talking about what she perceived as an atmosphere of hope in the context of a black man being a serious contender for the presidency, she caught a lot of flack for suggesting that she wasn't proud to be an American prior to that. Republicans were outraged, Democrats shrugged. The opposite of the reactions to Trump declaring that America was a wasteland.
Of course there's the question of how to define greatness. Trump pines for a time without "political correctness", where casual, systemic bigotry and misogyny were accepted. He's nostalgic for a time when we got our way by employing our military to threaten other nations into compliance with our will. A time where there was de facto apartheid.
"Make America Great Again" is a mindlessly repeated slogan without any concrete meaning.
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