MAGA and the Fourth Founding
Eric Foner, the expert on Abraham Lincoln, the US Civil War, and especially Reconstruction, has made the argument that Civil War and Reconstruction under Lincoln and Grant was a second foundation of the nation. It was just as significant as the First Founding. I also think it could be argued that after World War 2, which was a continuation of World War 1, and the Reconstruction of Europe and Asia was a third foundation of America.
And this leads me to ask if we are in the throes of a fourth foundation.
Each of the first three Foundations included 1) a major disruption wi†h worldwide connections and consequences including violence and war, 2) a political reconstruction which was in effect a new constitution with new national institutions, 3) political movements of reaction and renewal, 4) all with cultural and economic dimensions and directions.
The First Foundation was a declaration of independence and human rights following many skirmishes between colonists and a monarchical tyranny. And then a developing and ratification of a new constitution after the Revolutionary War with England assisted by pre-revolutionary France. This Foundation influenced revolution and counterrevolution in and against France and the monarchs of Spain and England. Freedom here means, as many smart people have concluded, “freedom from” as opposed †o “freedom to.”
The Second Foundation was a rebellion against slavery and a new declaration of freedom against slavery and a revised constitution that legislated the rights of all men of all races and cultures and reaction from southern and western landowners. It was in effect ratified by a Civil War that led to the new industrial society, vast immigration from Asia and Europe for wage labor, urbanization, and a Gilded Age of inequality which in turn led to the movement of industrial workers, women, and black heirs of slavery for civil rights and jobs. Freedom here is not only rights but also responsibilities, not only creative individuals but creative society.
The Third Foundation can be tied to the end of World War 2, the defeat of fascism if not total authoritarianism, the establishment of the United Nations, the black migration to the North, the reconstruction of Europe and Asia, the World Bank and other international organizations, and the establishment of industrial, and now information, economy in the US, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Pacific. Lines were drawn by USSR and America in a Cold War between social democracy and autocracy with many hot proxy-wars usually stimulated by the US or USSR protecting its world order of industrial capitalism. The notion of freedom here has transitioned to the whole of humanity and to agency over recipiency.
Each one of the preceding paragraphs can be, and has been filled out by scholars, statesmen, and social actors in history, social and political science, economics, culture, military science, and so forth.
Now realizing we have not quite reached the end of history or will realize our utopian dreams, when autocratic authoritarianism is making a comeback and a new Gilded Age has arisen, my question is: “are we in the beginning, middle, or end of a new Disruption and/or Founding? Is it Action or Reaction or both? Make America Great Again and Project 2025 seem mighty reactionary to me.
Since 2016 I have intensified my search for what makes the MAGA people tick. I studied critical racism, misguided masculinity, the cult of victimhood, valuing accumulation of profit over the well-being of all, religious fundamentalism and its focus on eternal life after, the fallacy of the absolute, and the idolization of our ideas.
Are these birth pangs or death pangs we are feeling? Are we heading for Star Trek or Star Wars? And most important, can this be a nonviolent disruption and founding? Or has the violence already occurred?
I want to believe, and choose to do so without evidence, that we are revaluing our very values. And that leads to action over reaction, greater freedom, greater care for one another. While recognizing the evil propensity in me and I suppose all of us, we have an opportunity for all of us to do better and be better.
If we want to avoid the dark force of reaction and turn to the freedom of action with each other, I think that we can see and choose a way to do that.
But more of that later.