Making America Great Again Requires Reminding Ourselves Of How America Made Itself Great In The First Place

And Then Everything Changed - The Chance We Have If We Take It

With Trump’s mandate win, how should we “Make America Great Again”? MAGA, to this date, has been mostly about things that have gone wildly wrong, like the situation at the Mexican Border. Those MAGA fixes are apparent. Finish the wall.

If China puts a 35% tariff on Ford 150 pickups, match the tariff with reciprocity. Tariffs are another form of a wall. Most Americans would agree that they don’t think of walls when they think of MAGA. Those walls are the MAGA Day One to-do items that jump off the page as fixes that are immediately needed. What we want to bring back from our MAGA past is more of an exploratory exercise.

Elon Musk didn’t delineate those future dreams while campaigning in Pennsylvania, delivering that State for Trump. But we can bet Elon believes it has something to do with Tesla electric cars, SpaceX rockets, and Boring Machine tunnels for underground Hyperloops in major US cities. But we as voters are still not entirely sure of how much Elon Musk’s agenda is part of Trump’s MAGA agenda.

What was great about America, and what should we resurrect? America’s industrial might is a legend, and much of its reputation is built on planes, trains, and automobiles. Henry Ford introduced the assembly line and low-cost cars every family could afford.

The vast expanse of the US Continent was linked by a Golden Spike for a railroad that made transcontinental travel an everyday occurrence. NASA went into space with satellites, and then a man went to the moon.

Aren’t these planes, trains, and automobile success stories what Americans think of when they think of what made America great?

Elon Musk's Dark MAGA dreams include high-speed trains, SpaceX rockets, and Tesla cars. Musk's MAGA dreams also include Optimus humanoid robots and Neuralink brain chips because he talks about them often. This one man’s vision of the future is engaging, complete with Neuralink brain implants that let you “type” ten times faster.

But when we allow ourselves to wax nostalgic, we think of simpler, more romantic times we all seem to have embedded in our subconscious as Americans. At our nearby Ford Dearborn Museum here in Southeastern Michigan, planes, trains, and automobiles are a favorite nostalgic daily tour for crowds of visitors year-round. We take our news gathering charrette visitors there often to offer our version of MAGA.

Are all of Elon’s dreams our dreams? Do we really need a brainchip to type twenty times faster? Do we really need a personal robot? Are there alternative dream worth recovering from the past?

The Ford Dearborn Museum is probably as good a place as any to consider what was great about America, what made America great, and what we want to bring back about America. Ford Aerospace, Ford Aviation, and of course the one hundred years of production automobiles, and a vast train collection as well await the Ford Dearborn Museum goers.

We have been shown a set of dreams to get Man to Mars, and have everything run in a fine automated fashion while that “Man” is gone on his trip. Are those our dreams or are they DARPA dreams? Do we have a say in that future? Should we speak up about that future now?

Planes, trains, and automobiles make as good a place as any to begin, considering what we really want to bring back to America, and there is no better showcase than Ford’s Dearborn Museum. Perhaps there is something to be gained from the beautiful industrial design of old rather than the futuristic look of CyberTruck and CyberCab.

At Neighborhood News Studios, we have filled the walls with retro designs to remind everyone that the future doesn’t always have to look like the future. In fact, the retro design has human curves and appointments to accommodate people, not large batteries.

We believe there is a lot to be learned from the Ford Dearborn Museum and their thousands of examples of design versus the more futuristic, monodesign of the Tesla CyberTruck and CyberCab designers, to cite just one example.

Isn’t this the Dark MAGA agenda offered by Elon Musk on October 5th during Trump’s triumphal return to Butler, PA? Or is it? We don’t know yet. Do we wait to find out, or do we define that future ourselves?

Next, we will share the numerous new gathering charrettes we have already had at the Ford Dearborn Museum to answer that important question: What do we bring back to make America great again?

Neighborhood News's new studio in Lambertville, Michigan, celebrates the best in trains, planes, and automobiles, not just defining what we are against but also what we are striving to bring back—innovative thinking and inspiring design.

We will hold additional newsgathering charrettes at this Lambertville, Michigan, location to rekindle the American spirit of innovation and design. At times, retro isn’t so bad after all. More importantly, the next generation needs to define the future for themselves rather than just adopt Elon’s dreams (and DARPA’s dreams) as a default.

Instead of defaulting to Elon Musk’s DARPA dreams, we should start with places like the Cranbrook School of Industrial Design in Detroit, Michigan. I have visited Cranbrook on our news-gathering charrettes, and Cranbrook dates back to the wife of Charles A. Lindberg, informing industrial design there while he was designing the Willow Run Bomber Plant for Ford.

https://cranbrookart.edu/departments/industrial-design/

At our news gathering charrettes, we even point out the functional design of the Lee Harvey Oswald’s Ford Econoline Van for hauling weapons for Cuba for Operation Mongoose across Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana. What could be more fun than Oswald’s Econolines for Cuba weapons training?

The time is now to make America great again, which means thinking and designing again. This is our time to seize the day - Carpe Diem! Now is the time for all good minds to come to the aid of their country.