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My reaction to the words “Make America Great Again” is always to recoil because there has never been a time in this country where things were great for everyone, but I have been thinking lately about moments in history we could pull inspiration from and I’d like to suggest a few:
1. Reconstruction Era (1865-1877) In the 12 years following the end of the civil war, Black American (men) actually had *more* rights and representation in Congress than they did 100 years later, when they’d be forced to fight for a true democracy during the Civil Rights Movement
Our mistake during reconstruction was not letting the Radical Republicans dictate post Civil War policy; had we done so, we would have actually punished confederate leaders and confiscated land from slave owners to award to the 4 million previously enslaved people in the south 
Instead, we let that drunk asshole Andrew Johnson pardon every ex-confederate and veto the Civil Rights Act, forcing the Senate to override—creating an opening for the United Daughters of the Confederacy to rewrite history with the Lost Cause, through monuments + textbooks alike.
2. FDR + The New Deal (1933-1939) Most of the social programs available to Americans today can be traced back to FDR’s presidency, and though he was deeply flawed to say the least (Ordered the internment of Japanese-Americans 
) The New Deal did legitimately make America better.
) The New Deal did legitimately make America better.
Among the policies and programs the New Deal introduced were: Bank reform, Social Security, the FHA, Labor Relations, the Public Works Administration, Food Stamps.. some of the most socialist policies our country has ever seen. Still, FDR was a humanitarian capitalist at best.
3. Era of High Marginal Tax Rates (1940-1963) At the height of the era, the top earners in the United States (those earning upward of $400k per year) were taxed 94% in progressive tax brackets beyond that amount. The top tax rate has been stuck at 39.6% since 2013. Thanks Reagan!
Reasons why we should raise taxes on the wealthy are really best summarized in my thread about what 200 billion dollars looks like: https://twitter.com/heyjenbartel/status/1348268793320116225?s=21 but beyond that it’s been proven that taxing the rich to pay for increased stimulus for the poor increases overall spending.
(We’ve lived through this era of companies like Amazon and Facebook having a monopoly over markets, it was called The Gilded Age and it set off an economic depression unlike anything we’d seen before—resulting in Teddy Roosevelt breaking up the trusts through regulatory reform.)
4. LBJ and The Great Society (1964-1965) The Civil Rights Act (‘64 and ‘68) the Voting Rights Act, the Immigration and Nationality Services Act, and the Economic Opportunity Act were all passed during this period, along with programs like Head Start, Medicare, and Medicaid.
In conclusion: I believe that there *are* moments in our history worthy of being considered as inspiration for how to “Make America Great”, and the throughline is that they all happen to culminate during times when we allowed more socialist policies to come to the forefront.
Each of those moments has happened in *spite* of the white supremacist “democracy” our founding fathers designed for this country, often set in motion by imperfect men who were capitalist to their core—all because they had their feet held to the fire by the people. 
In 2021 it’s less “ask me about my feminist agenda” and more “ask me about my socialist agenda” 
