And that is, of course, exactly what the actual argument is, about the past, present, and future of the country: Attempts to establish a functioning multiracial democracy are illegitimate; America must remain a nation dominated by white Christians - a herrenvolk democracy.
https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/1470064324492374017
The ideology behind 2021’s “Reconstruction was bad” is the one that also animated 1957’s “Why the South Must Prevail”: The overriding concern is to uphold white Christian patriarchal dominance - because it’s the “natural order,” or “culture,” or the superior “civilization.”
In this view, attempts to interfere with that “natural,” “superior” white Christian patriarchal order are illegitimate and “Un-American” - and so Reconstruction was bad, Brown v. Board of Education was bad. Conversely, initiatives to uphold that order are always justified.
And this ideology has always defined the American Right’s attitude towards democracy: It’s fine as long as it’s restricted in a way that prevents it from interfering with white Christian male dominance. As soon as it threatens that order, however, it’s got to go.
Let’s remember what “democracy” meant in America before the civil rights legislation of the 1960s: A system that was fairly democratic if you happened to be a white Christian man (especially a wealthy white man!) – and something else entirely if you were not.
Reconstruction was a notable exception from this norm. But America’s first attempt at multiracial democracy turned out to be a fairly short-lived and ultimately aborted experiment, drowned in a combination of white reactionary violence and ostensibly colorblind laws.
If you make the argument - and I’m using the term “argument” very loosely, considering the levels of bad faith and ignorance on display here - that it was actually Reconstruction that was bad, and ending it was good, then you’re telling me exactly who you are. 
There’s no use reading this as any kind of serious argument about America’s past or traditions of American historiography. It’s a purely ideological statement, ostensibly about the past, but actually about what kind of America - a white Christian nation - the author desires.
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