I looked it up - it's real
(media.kotakuinaction2.win)
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Is there any historical reason to believe this, or is this just optimism? There certainly are patterns of extremism and reaction, but I cannot immediately think of examples of whether the 'pendulum' theory would be valid. Perhaps Restoration England.
But even in the archetypical example, were the Thermidorian Reaction and Directory period really more conservative due to the extremism of the Terror?
The pendulum theory is just a nice way to hide that two steps forward one step back is forever "progressing" toward absolute degeneracy and collapse.
Trump was a "pendulum swing" back from 0bama. One step back to think everything was looking up. Now we're two steps beyond the 0bama era in only six months time.
The pendulum has only ever "swung back" on a time scale of centuries, after a complete collapse. Accelerationism only works with the backing of entire nations. The west accelerated the collapse of the soviet union, but what did that do to stop communism? Here again, we took one step back, and now we're ten steps forward toward a complete takeover of planet earth.
Assuming Biden won the election fair and square.
I said nothing about elections, that era existed whether the election was stolen or not.
Part optimism, part human nature, I suppose. Pendulum theory would probably work better as a double or multi pendulum theory, since there are so many factors that bring chaos to the reaction that a simple pendulum can't adequately express how the reaction will play out. It will change course, but the how far and and at what velocity is difficult to say.
I also wouldn't look at it as a left/right thing. It's more of perceived problem/proposed solution thing, with a strong emotional component. The greater the perception of the problem, the more open people become to varied solutions, manifesting in some form of populism or another. Harnessing that brewing populism towards your ideology's proposed solutions is what is probably most important in determining how things play out, but it's still going to be chaotic.
Historically, I think you get it right in the general observation of patterns of extremism and reaction. Trying to look at minutiae of historical events won't tell you much about a completely different context.
As an aside, I also don't look at the Overton Window being fixed in size. Sometimes, what's called movement is really expansion or contraction.