Question for Trump supporters - when did America stop being 'great'?

[Beet]

Serious question - when do you think, to within five years - this happened and why?

I'm not a Trump supporter, but I'll take a shot.  When I was born, the US represent fifty percent of the world's aggregate GDP.  Today it represents about twenty percent.  50 is greater than 20. 

It's not that we have diminished, rather other societies have prospered, largely as a result of importing the American ideal. 

Greatness should be measured in absolute terms, not relative.

By this standard we are getting greater as a nation all the time, despite the tragedy of Donald Trump's election. "We are getting greater all the time" is not an exciting storyline. It does not promote stories of nostalgia and glory times yonder when we were young. But it is true.

Think
-- Would you really want to live in a country that had never nominated a woman as a major party nominee, ever?
-- Would you really want to live in a country that never completed a successful landing of a first stage rocket, and all space rockets could only be used once?
-- Would you really want to live in a country that never once produced a person who could jump 25,000 feet from an airplane and still survive?
-- Would you really want to live in a country with a lower median income, a lower stock market, a higher poverty rate, a less valuable currency, and a lower GDP?

Hopefully not. All those describe this country a year ago.

[Beet]

Greatness should be measured in absolute terms, not relative.

That's just silly.  I'm no trump supporter, but you cannot honestly believe that.  Is five a great number?  Well, in a vacuum we can't say.   Compared to two it's great, but compared to nine is is not.

Is 1000 great?  Well, if it is the number of dollars I receive each day as renumeration for my labors then yes, it is indeed great.  If, on the other hand, it is the number of dollars I receive each month, then no it is not great.

A year ago we could say "No woman has ever been nominated by the Democrats or Republicans for president."  Today we can say, "the only woman ever nominated by a major party was so narcissistic and so untrustworthy that even a greedy, unethical businessman accused of sexual harassment, bigotry, and fraud defeated her, winning several states that Democrats have not lost in a generation."  This is not a bigger situation, and it is not a better situation.

Your argument has so many holes in it you should market it as a sieve.

Would America be a greater country if we destroyed the rest of the world? We would have 100% of the world's GDP. We would also be the country that killed 7 billion people, and soon sink into economic and environmental catastrophe.

If my arguments has the holes of a sieve, your argument does not even have the thread to hold together as a single piece. And your kind of zero sum thinking is dangerous!

Even if Hillary had lost in a 60-40 landslide, her being in the running would have still represented progress, compared to no woman ever having seriously run. It says a woman is worthy of being considered. This has never been said before by our country, never seriously. Prior to this year, the sum total of all the women ever to run for president in 240 years received about 2.5 million votes. After this year it will be over 67 million votes. A quantum leap in our people's concrete willingness (which had only been theoretical before) to demonstrate support for female leadership.

[Beet]

You're attempting reduction to the absurd.  I appreciate the effort, but it misses the point.  I am not advocating a "zero-sum game."  As I stated in my original post, our aggregate GDP has increased.  It's just that those of developing nation have increased faster.  Capitalism is very fashionable now, even in Communist China.  It's a positive-sum game, to be sure, so long as it sustains itself.

Of course not. But the frame of reference that America was greater when we had 50% of world GDP because large parts of the rest of the world were reduced to rubble, assumes zero-sum game.