The American Revival: America’s Post-Trump Period of Reconstruction
Race, power and privilege have intertwined to weave a blanket of discontent across America for centuries. Americans have an unavoidable permanent reminder of the nationalist president we elected to follow our first Black president. With the transition of power to the Biden-Harris Administration comes the hope of a return to normalcy, true equality and civility. The privileges holstered by the elite class will finally be leveled so that America’s abundant socio-economic opportunities can be shared by the masses. This is America’s post-Trump period of reconstruction aimed at reviving the American spirit of equality and justice for all. This is the American Revival.
In every war, as in every election, there is a loser. After an insurrection, the reunification of the losers with the winners is necessary for both to live in pseudo-harmony. The Trump insurrectionists waged the electoral vote battle in an effort to keep their privilege. They are acting just as their secessionist predecessors did when the grips of slavery’s chains broke. After the abolishment of slavery and the end of the Civil War, America endured an identity crisis. Would America continue on as a bifurcated slave and free nation; or, be a single democracy where every human is equal and has the right to vote? The cinders of history revealed a hybrid nation of free states and lynching states.
From 1861 to 1865, the Civil War brought four years of death, destruction and discord spurred by the South’s need to enslave and dehumanize Blacks. Under the 1867 Reconstruction Acts, Black men in southern states could vote and hold office. The Acts placed former Confederate states under military rule until the state ratified the 14th Amendment and established new constitutions guaranteeing equal rights and protections to Blacks.
America’s Reconstruction was actually working. Approximately 2000 Blacks held public offices in local, state and national governments with 16 Blacks serving as U.S. Representatives. Black men were winning right up until the hotly contested presidential election of 1876. The 23rd quadrennial presidential election of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876 brought an abrupt end to black male civil rights.
The 1876 contest between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden, was the narrowest electoral vote win (185–184), and captured the highest voter turn out of eligible voters in American history, at 81.8%. Hayes carried 21 states and Tilden carried 17. Thus, Hayes was awarded 185 electoral votes and Tilden, 184. Tilden won the popular vote with 4,288,546 votes to Hayes’ 4,034,311. The slave owning Tilden Democrats objected to the certification of the electoral votes leading to the Compromise of 1877. In the unwritten post Civil War Compromise, the Black man’s new equality and protection was negotiated away to prevent a post Civil War southern uprising. The compromised military withdrawal from the southern states destroyed southern Blacks. The evacuation from southern states opened the gates of Jim Crow terrorism and allowed the Klan to spread and reestablish white supremacy, pre-war lynchings, torture and terrorism of southern Blacks for decades.
To the world, America was a hopeful experiment in Democracy that survived a Civil War and treated its citizens equally. On January 6th, nations with democratic governments watched the televised insurrection with hopes that America’s fledgling democracy would prevail. The world’s authoritarian leaders viewed the insurrection as a feather in their dictatorial caps. Conservatives viewed the terrorist insurrection as a justifiable fight to overturn an election they erroneously claim was stolen.
At home, Blacks watched the insurrectionists’ terrorist attack on the Capitol and were left wondering why the Capitol Police refused to use their rubber bullets, tear gas, German Shepherds, fire hoses, paddy wagons, shackles, and real bullets as they did in June 2020 against Black Lives Matter protesters. In the days following the insurrection, many questioned the aggressive policing Blacks encountered when protesting versus the hands-off policing of the murderous insurrectionists that stormed the Capitol.
Unlike Reconstruction’s tragic end for Blacks, this American Revival should not end with a compromised reversal of rights for some and confirmation of privilege for others. When there is a threat to our Republic, the Constitution calls for a trial, conviction and punishment. There should be no tolerance of white supremacy and no forgiveness for insurrection, treason and murder. In this American Revival will the privileged insurrectionists be held accountable? Will the 45th President be charged with inciting insurrection? Will U.S. Representatives be removed for aiding the insurrection? Will the Capitol Police killer be convicted of murder? Will the Senate vote outside of party lines and ratify Trump’s second impeachment preventing him from ever running for office again? Or, will there be an unwritten secret compromise amongst the elites that will allow the privileged insurrectionists to be charged with misdemeanors, the President to avoid criminal prosecution and treasonous U.S. Representatives to keep their seats?
The American Revival is upon us and the democracies of the world are counting on us to lead by example. The 2021 transition of power to the Biden Presidency, coupled with a Democratic House and Senate can cultivate a unified America that celebrates equality and champions democracy. We can hope for the privileged to be brought to justice in this period of American Revival, but only time will reveal whether justice is really blind, every vote really counts, everyone is really equal under the law and that democracy really works.