The American Cycle: A Brief Introduction
To understand Reconstructionism, one must first understand the American Cycle, which shows us how Reconstructionism is much more than merely looking back at the era of Reconstruction from 1865 -1877. Reconstructionism empowers us to look back at this transformative era of American democracy while also giving us the tools to look forward and transform the United States for the better. The American Cycle is this nation’s regressive cycle that exists to thwart the ideals and history of Reconstruction, and to prevent us from overcoming this nation’s white supremacist, authoritarian, and racially divisive norms.
The American Cycle consists of four stages or eras. The United States has completed the cycle twice. When the first iteration concluded around the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, whereupon the second iteration began, it would have been impossible for the American public to recognize the American Cycle because the subsequent stages had not yet occurred. Only now, in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s presidency, can we clearly see the cycle repeating itself. We are in a pivotal and urgent moment to disrupt it. Today – right now – we have an historic opportunity to break the American Cycle and transcend this nation’s ingrained flaws; or we can remain unaware or indifferent and choose to continue the cycle, embarking on a third iteration that will systematically remove our rights, foster division, and embrace authoritarianism. The 2024 presidential election is the crystallized moment where we get to set this nation’s trajectory for the next 100 years. This might sound hyperbolic, but the American Cycle shows that it may take at least another century to change course if we do not seize this opportunity.
The American Cycle consists of four eras: Founding, Abolition, Reconstruction, and Redemption, and, as noted, has completed two rounds. Later on I will give a more detailed explanation of each era, but here for now is a brief summary of each era and its repetition.
The Founding Era happened at the founding of this nation in the late 1700s and early 1800s, and it happened again during Jim Crow at the beginning of the 1900s. Founding consists of the white Americans who created and controlled this nation building a democracy that also condoned ethnocide, which is the destruction of a people’s culture while keeping the people. In the 1700s, and before, the dominant iteration of ethnocide in America was chattel slavery. Unlike genocide, which consists of the destruction of a people and is ethnocide’s linguistic sibling, the final solution for chattel slavery was not the eradication or forced removal of African people from the United States. In fact, the final solution of ethnocide was nearly the opposite outcome because European colonizers and the founders of this nation wanted African people to be a sustained and oppressed people in the United States in perpetuity. The new agenda became the destruction of African culture as a means for oppressing African people. This is ethnocide. During the first Founding Era, chattel slavery was ethnocide; during the second Founding Era, Jim Crow and segregation became the next manifestation of ethnocide.
The Abolition Era arises immediately after the Founding Era begins because oppressed Americans and their eventual white allies fight to abolish the oppressive norms ingrained in each Founding Era. In the 1830s, the movement to abolish slavery was the first Abolition Era in the American Cycle, culminating in the Civil War. In the 1950s, the second Abolition Era emerged in the Civil Rights Movement to abolish Jim Crow.
It is important to note here that each Abolition Era has two beginnings. The first is when Black Americans fight to abolish their oppression; the second is when a significant share of white Americans acknowledge these efforts and become allies to the movement. It should be clear, however, that Black Americans have fought to free themselves from white oppression the moment it commenced, so the Abolition Era begins a moment after the Founding Era begins. However, American society generally regards such periods as ‘commencing’ when white Americans take note of them and become allies with Black Americans.
The first Abolition Era ended after the Civil War and the beginning of Reconstruction, but the second did not end with the end of the Civil Rights Movement. Instead, this era continued until 2008 and the start of Barack Obama’s presidency. This extension of the period resulted from an American status quo dominated by seemingly non-racist language used to cultivate racist outcomes. When the intent is to pursue racist outcomes without racist language, it can take decades to “prove” the racism that we all see and experience.
The Reconstruction Era occurs after Abolition has prevailed and the United States attempts to create a society devoid of ethnocide. This era is not defined solely by its successes, but instead by the profound philosophical and cultural shift around which it attempts to remake and reconstruct the nation. During Reconstruction, from 1865-1877, the United States adopted the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, established civil rights through the creation of four different civil rights acts, and created the Department of Justice, among many other accomplishments. In this era, racial equality was not merely theoretical; the United States enacted numerous laws and created several institutions with the goal of manifesting and sustaining this equality.
The philosophical and cultural shift of seeing Black people as equal to white people in the eyes of the law is a radical one in American society, one that most of America’s founding fathers never intended or hoped would occur. The first Reconstruction, from 1865-1877, was therefore a tipping point in the American culture war, both literally and figuratively. One side of the war supported ethnocide and the Founding Era, and the other supported equality and Reconstruction. The existence of Reconstruction means that an American cultural and political status quo shaped by white dominance may be ending. In response, a large share of white Americans will fight, as if their lives depend on it, to end Reconstruction and establish anew the Founding Era.
Barack Obama’s presidency thus amounts to a second Reconstruction because a Black man becoming president of the United States, while championing a message of Black empowerment and racial equality, is both an obvious continuation of the ideals of Reconstruction and the logical result of the second era of Abolition. Likewise, his presidency also caused the American political and cultural right to commence a culture war to delegitimize Obama, undermine equality, and celebrate our founding fathers.
However, one of the most obvious distinctions between the first Reconstruction and Obama’s are the legislative and constitutional accomplishments. When comparing the accomplishments of each era, it is important to recognize that during a significant portion of Reconstruction the former Confederate states had not been readmitted to the Union. The Thirteenth Amendment was passed prior to their readmission, and agreeing to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment became a requirement for readmission. Essentially, the absence of a strong opposition party within Congress allowed Reconstruction to radically change America for the better and pass legislation and amend the Constitution in ways that would have been impossible with an empowered South in Congress.
This was not the case for Obama’s Reconstruction. The Affordable Care Act was arguably his biggest accomplishment, and by making healthcare more accessible to the American public he ‘reconstructed’ America according to the spirit of Reconstruction. When freedom is expanded, it consists not merely of the idea or rhetoric of freedom, but also must accord people the dignity (often manifested through government services) that comes with freedom. Citizenship and voting rights are part of freedom, but so is access to education, housing, and economic opportunity. Health care is also an aspect of freedom, and Obama’s Reconstruction made it more accessible to the American people.
Finally, the Redemption Era comes after the ethnocidal culture warriors have caused the end of the Reconstruction Era. In the 1800s, these culture warriors called themselves “Redeemers” because they wanted to “redeem” the South by returning it to its antebellum, pre-Reconstruction status. During the Reconstruction Era these people were white Southern Americans and former Confederates who fought to end Reconstruction as if their lives (certainly their status and identity) depended on it. After the Confederacy ended, they began establishing new groups to carry out their ethnocidal aims. The Redeemers were one of these groups, comprised of the Southern plantation elite: the landowners, businessmen, and politicians who held most of the power. The less powerful Southerners formed white supremacist militias such as the Ku Klux Klan. For the entirety of Reconstruction, the Redeemers collaborated with these white supremacist militias to regain control of the South through both terrorism and political power. When Reconstruction ended, the Redeemers regained control of the South and the Redemption Era began.
The word Redemption, moreover, highlights how this era was defined by the complete corruption of the English language. Bad actions were given good names and good actions, bad ones. The culmination of this era from a political and legal standpoint was the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision and its endorsement of “separate but equal” social conditions. The phrase “separate but equal” implies equality while, of course, actively creating inequality. The narrative of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy that championed Confederates and demonized proponents of Reconstruction was the cultural culmination of the era. American language in this context had become essentially dishonest, its main purpose to obfuscate the truth. In order to dismantle the goodness and equality of Reconstruction, ethnocidal Americans had to coin a dystopian language to create a dystopian second Founding Era, namely Jim Crow.
Donald Trump’s presidency espoused a slogan of “Make America Great Again,” the implication being that greatness had existed before and until Obama and the second Reconstruction. Throughout his presidential campaign and while in office, Trump collaborated with white supremacist organizations to obtain or secure political power, and on January 6, 2021, he used a combination of warped political maneuvering and white terrorism in an attempt to reclaim control of the government. Trump’s presidency was thus a second Redemption Era, but his defeat in 2020 had cut it short. Now he is running again for the presidency with an agenda of continuing his truncated Redemption Era, and as American history has shown, it could take more than 100 years to repair the damage.
Biden’s Presidency is therefore a pivotal moment in American history. His 2020 campaign appealed for the continuation of Reconstruction and the work he had accomplished alongside Obama, promising to elevate Black Americans and people of color to positions of influence they had never held before. Having a Black woman as Vice President, a Black woman on the Supreme Court, and an Indigenous Woman cabinet member are clear examples of his commitment to continuing Reconstruction.
Indeed, whatever Biden’s shortcomings, when viewed through the American Cycle, the philosophical and cultural battle that the 2024 election represents is abundantly clear. Biden represents continuing Reconstruction and breaking the American Cycle, and Trump represents a continuation of the cycle and the creation of a new Jim Crow or Founding Era. Reconstructionism is the philosophy we can use to break the American Cycle for good, transcend our regressive status quo, and establish a more equitable and just society for all.