I don't disagree, but to play devil's advocate, maybe the Trump campaign could have used a slogan that wasn't used by the KKK or Nazi sympathizers? If they REALLY believed in the idea behind the slogan, and not the historical connotations of that exact set of two words, they could have done better. But, they didn't.
To put a finer point on it, what if they had chosen "America over everything"? Would you still be criticizing those who detect certain...implications in the phrase?
edit: I am generally not sympathetic to language policing. But I'm not so sure this is language policing.
I think in the beginning both sides played into it. Trump probably knew there'd be a group of people who would say exactly that, and probably made the bet that a larger group of people would roll their eyes at that point.
Certainly the provocative language (what could probably even semi-fairly be called dog whistling) or maybe better described as "trolling" lost out to the language-policing though.
To put a finer point on it, what if they had chosen "America over everything"? Would you still be criticizing those who detect certain...implications in the phrase?
edit: I am generally not sympathetic to language policing. But I'm not so sure this is language policing.