Former President Donald Trump is relentlessly attacking Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, his closest, albeit fairly distant, rival in the polls as the Republican presidential primary field continues to become increasingly crowded. Tuesday evening, Trump’s campaign fired off a press release claiming DeSantis had “blatantly” plagiarized the former president’s 2020 State of the Union address. The accusation stems from one single phrase: the “great American comeback,” according to TalkingPointsMemo.

Trump can complain about this all he likes, but this phrase has been extremely common in politics as the decades pass and even featured heavily in President Ronald Reagan’s State of the Union address in 1986 and is often used by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy who wouldn’t know how to manage the “great American comeback” if his life depended on it.

“Amid a catastrophic failure to launch, Ron DeSantis announced his candidacy with ‘Great American Comeback,’ a phrase stolen from President Donald J. Trump’s 2020 State of the Union address,” the Trump campaign statement read. “Perhaps, the DeSantis communications staff was pre-occupied attempting to extinguish the flames of their candidate’s announcement to come up with their own message.

The press release included a clip of DeSantis’s YouTube announcement video, which was posted on May 24 along with his glitch-filled Twitter campaign launch. And in the video, DeSantis declares, “I’m running for president to lead our great American comeback.” Trump’s team compared that line with the ex-president’s 2020 State of the Union wherein he boasted, “Three years ago we launched the great American comeback. Tonight I stand before you to share the incredible results.”

But when a LexisNexis search was executed, more than 480 pages of results for the phrase “great American comeback” began with Reagan’s fifth State of the Union speech in 1986. That address, delayed by the tragic explosion of the Challenger Space Shuttle, Reagan boasted about “37 straight months of economic growth,” and dropping interest rates and then claimed this was all due to conservative values.

“Family and community remain the moral core of our society, guardians of our values and hopes for the future,” Reagan said. “Family and community are the co-stars of this great American comeback.”

And the phrase has been used scores of times since then. It’s been used in news stories that refer to everything from tennis matches to golf tournaments, and even the Hubble space telescope and reptile species that are making a comeback.

In general, politicians aren’t particularly original and if they can grab on to an over-used phrase, they will. The purported American comeback (which did look promising after the end of WWII but hasn’t been up to much since) has been used by politicians from both parties. This includes the former mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, the former commissioner of Charlotte County in Florida, and in a slew of congressional campaigns. During his time as a congressman, McCarthy used it regularly in the 2010s to tout Republican priorities. Trump has been crowing about the work of conservative pundit Monica Crowley, frequently posting examples on his Truth Social platform over the past few days, and even she, most notably published a book entitled What the (Bleep) Just Happened?: The Happy Warrior’s Guide to the Great American Comeback.

But this so-called “comeback” has never really transpired. Healthcare in this country has been a complete shambles for decades. The most basic needs like being able to afford to buy a house went by the wayside decades ago and prices of the most basic foods continue to go up. Experts say inflation is finally slowing down, but let’s face it — far too many Americans are still feeling the bite.

So when, really is this great American comeback going to happen?