Second American Revolution
Second American Revolution is a rhetorical device and political term that has been used in different contexts to refer to what its proponents or critics perceive as a radical change in American politics or foreign policy that parallels the American Revolution of 1776 in scope. The term has been used in three different ways:
- By Marxist historians to refer to the American Civil War as the completion of the unfulfilled tasks of the first revolution;
- By conservative political activists, especially those involved in the Project 2025 movement, to refer to a radical overhaul of the U.S. federal government;
- By foreign policy experts to refer to the second presidency of Donald Trump as a radical departure from the established world order since World War II.
Historical usage: The Civil War as a Second Revolution
The potential first systematic academic usage of the term refers back to the American Civil War of 1861-1865. Marxist historian George Novack, in his book entitled America's Revolutionary Heritage, maintained that the First American Revolution of 1776 did not resolve the inherent contradiction of chattel slavery, and a further revolution was thus historically inevitable.[1]
Five tasks had to be fulfilled by the democratic-bourgeois revolution in North America:
- liberation of the American people from foreign oppression
- unification of the separate states into one nation
- establishment of a democracy and a republic
- concentration of the state power in the hands of the bourgeoisie
- elimination of the pre-capitalist relations of labor, that is, Indian tribalism, feudalism and slavery, in order to ensure full development of the capitalist productive forces.[1]
The First Revolution had fulfilled some of the aforementioned tasks, but the power of the slave interest was such that the institution of slavery could obtain constitutional guarantee and be preserved under the existing historical circumstances of the late eighteenth century.[1]
As Novack sees it, the triumph of the Republican Party in the 1860 election and the consequent secession of the states that practiced slavery culminated in the struggle between the southern planters and the northern bourgeoisie.[1] With their leadership of the forces opposed to slavery, the Radical Republicans broke up the political and economic supremacy of the slave oligarchy, beat the Confederacy on the battlefields, and reshaped the Republic in accordance with their class aims and interests.[1] Through the destruction of chattel slavery, Novack contended, the Second Revolution swept away the chief mode of property and labor in the South and conclusively disposed of the problem that had plagued the republic from its inception.[1]
That theory is part of a wider Marxist historiography of the war. In the midst of the conflict itself, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels themselves had favored the side of the Union against the Confederacy as being a struggle between slave labor and free labor where they supported Abraham Lincoln.[2]
Conservative usage: Project 2025 and the MAGA movement
During the 2020s, this terminology was used by individuals who were part of Project 2025 and who were advocating for the restructuring of the government. Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, which created Project 2025, made statements during his interview on the War Room podcast run by Steve Bannon and stated that "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless, if the left allows it to be."[3]
Roberts considered the ruling of the Supreme Court regarding the presidential immunity from suits as one that would allow future presidents to enact policy without "triple guessing, every decision they're making in their official capacity."[3] Roberts envisioned this revolution as involving the dismantling of what Roberts calls the "deep state" through removing civil service protection of federal workers involved in policy-making, thus allowing for easier replacement by Republican party members.[3]
The aim of Project 2025 was to offer "both an agenda for governance and the right people to implement that agenda from day one of the next conservative presidency," all contained in a 922-page tome called Mandate for Leadership along with a roster of candidates already vetted to serve in appointed positions.[4] "The mandate" became a mantra for those criticizing Project 2025, none more so than Democratic Party presidential hopeful Kamala Harris, who listed Trump and "his radical Project 2025 mandate" among her chief adversaries in her first pronouncements as frontrunner for the Democratic nomination.[4]
Usage in foreign policy: Trump's second term
The third and completely different application of the quote has appeared in the context of international relations studies after Donald Trump has been elected president again in January 2025. A senior fellow and director of the Global Order and Institutions Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Stewart Patrick, has used the quote in his March 2025 essay "Trump Has Launched a Second American Revolution. This Time, It's Against the World."[5]
In terms of intensity of the change of foreign policy of America in the second presidential term of Trump, there have been no precedents in the history of the country except for surprise attacks on America, such as the Attack on Pearl Harbor and the September 11 attacks. Patrick compares the reorientation to the "fifteen weeks" of February-June 1947 when Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan were proclaimed, saying "we are not at the creation but the destruction."[5]
According to Patrick, there were ten themes in Trumpian foreign policy:
- Abdication of American global leadership
- A mentality that is skeptical of international institutions
- Degradation of Western alliances
- Return of spheres of influence
- Disregard of international law
- Favoring bilateral diplomacy rather than multilateral diplomacy
- Opposition to economic multilateralism and international organizations like World Trade Organization
- Disbandment of foreign development assistance (USAID)
- Abandonment of democracy promotion
- Rejection of international framework for management of global public goods including climate, health, and artificial intelligence[5]
Patrick noted that Trump’s offensive policies towards NATO, G7, and European Union have affected the confidence of his allies in him as German authorities considered negotiating with France and United Kingdom about sharing nuclear weapons. Likewise, Kaja Kallas, foreign secretary of European Union remarked, "The free world needs a new leader" after Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House.[5]
Domestic unrest and potential revolution
In addition to these uses, academics and policy analysts have discussed the idea of whether the domestic political and social situation in the USA in the 2020s is a pre-revolutionary situation. Mathew Burrows from the Stimson Center observed that according to a YouGov poll, more Americans thought that it was probable that there will be a civil war in the USA in the next ten years than those who didn't, while several hundred political scientists and historians in an April 2025 poll thought that the country will become an authoritarian state under Trump's second term.[6]
Burrows observed that levels of political violence had been rising on several indicators. Historian and complexity theorist Peter Turchin's database on political violence in the U.S. counted seven assassinations during the five-year period 2020 to 2024, which was higher than the previous highest level in the 1960s.[6] Threats made against legislators reached an all-time high in 2024 for the second straight year, while the Capitol Police investigated more than 9,000 threats against Congressmen in 2024.[6]
Concerning the structural causes of instability, Burrows invoked the idea of "elite overproduction" put forward by Turchin; that is, the historical propensity for societal collapse in situations when social mobility opportunities diminish amid growing competition for elites.[6] He likened this phenomenon to the Gilded Age (1876-1900), when industrialists created greater socio-economic disparities, violence rose, and a populist movement developed around farmers and workers.[6] However, the Gilded Age did not culminate in a revolution mainly due to the efforts of the Progressive Era and Theodore Roosevelt's administration, and Burrows stressed the lack of a reform movement in modern politics.[6]
Rachel Kleinfeld of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who spoke about cultural displacement being one of the factors behind right-wing extremism, and a University of Chicago analysis of the January 6, 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, which found that the belief in demographic displacement made participants three times more likely to become part of the extremist group.[6]
Concerning institutional distrust, Burrows referred to the figures published by the Pew Research Center according to which only 22% of American adults trust the federal government to do what is right most of the time, in contrast with 77% six decades ago, and Gallup data pointing to a similar trend in relation to churches and the medical industry.[6]
Historiography note on numbering
There is disagreement amongst users of the term regarding what is considered the "first" American Revolution. Most scholarly and journalistic uses recognize the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) as the first, which would make any later revolution "the second". The Marxist interpretation by Novack regards the Civil War as the second in a series of revolutions, suggesting that there have not been any other revolutionary occurrences since then.[1] Modern conservative and foreign policy uses of the phrase refer to present or near future events as "the second" revolution, after 1776.[3][5]
See also
- American Revolution
- American Civil War
- Project 2025
- Second Trump administration
- Political polarization in the United States
- January 6, 2021 United States Capitol attack
- Peter Turchin
Notes
References
- "The US Civil War was the Second American Revolution". The Militant. February 12, 2024.
- Nicholls, Flynn (July 3, 2024). "Project 2025 Leader Promises 'Second American Revolution'". Newsweek.
- "Project 2025: 'a second American Revolution'?". The Week. August 4, 2024.
- Patrick, Stewart (March 19, 2025). "Trump Has Launched a Second American Revolution. This Time, It's Against the World". Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
- Burrows, Mathew (October 22, 2025). "Is America Headed for Revolution?". Stimson Center.
Bibliography
- Novack, George (1976). America's Revolutionary Heritage: Marxist Essays. Pathfinder Press. Search this book on
Category:American Revolution Category:Concepts in political philosophy Category:Donald Trump Category:American Civil War Category:Political violence in the United States
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