By Arthur M. Schlesinger Michael Brenes
The pendulum will swing back. It is a phrase invoked repeatedly, with variation, since Donald Trump鈥檚 reelection last November. Cable news anchor Chris Cuomo, Senator Angus King, and pollster Nate Silver have all invoked it to some degree. Presidential biographer Jon Meacham recently predicted that the pendulum would swing from a Donald Trump presidency to 鈥渢he presidency of AOC.鈥 The phrase conjures history, the past as prologue. The 鈥減endulum鈥濃攖he vagaries of change, the slow pace of history鈥攚ill shift back to Democrats soon. Americans will tire of the status quo that Trump built. The MAGA movement will fall.
Talk of history, particularly American political history, in such ways returns us to the life and career of historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. For it was Schlesinger Jr.鈥檚 1986 book, The Cycles of American History, that popularized the idea that American politics shifts from liberalism to conservatism, and back again, within every generation. Schlesinger also used the term 鈥減endulum鈥 to describe this sh