TOW #1 - America is Great by Roger Cohen

In the article, "America is Great", Roger Cohen uses the current United States presidential race to examine what it mean for a country to be great.  Cohen tries to convince his audience of American citizens to not vote for Trump throughout all of his writing.  By setting up circumstances when a European nation would use the presidential slogan, "Make (country) Great Again", he explains how European countries are past their stage of greatness.  He says that when the countries reached their maximum point of greatness, their country went to war and lost thousands of lives.  Cohen also uses sarcasm to show that becoming a "great" country again would be impossible.  Near the middle of The New York Times article, Cohen writes, "Or how about, 'Let's Make Italy Great Again!'... Italian interest in greatness is about as deep as its interest in swapping its cuisine for neighboring Albania's" (Cohen).

By using sarcasm, Cohen engages his audience and puts the situation into perspective.  His use of sarcasm tells the reader that it is easy to make jokes about making a country great again, because it is just that ridiculous.  This makes it even easier for the audience to accept Cohen's claim, that Trump's campaign is not one they should vote for.

The author clearly establishes that he does not believe "great" is a word that can be used to describe a successful, stable nation.  After explaining Europe's situation with greatness, Cohen shows that he believes that America is great, but then goes into details that show America doesn't look great at all.  The ending paragraph of the article explains the entire piece.  He writes, "The most dangerous point...of a nation's power is when the apogee of its greatness is passes but it is not yet resigned to decline. That's where Trump's American is.  Which is really, really great" (Cohen).  Previously in the text, Cohen had associated greatness with failure.  I think that he very clearly makes his point that Trump's campaign will not last, and reaches out to his audience not to take him seriously.