Episode 57 · 2021-01-12 · 48:46 · Original in Finnish
Trump's impeachment and deplatforming | Antti Ronkainen | Negotiator 57
Originally published as “Trumpin viraltapano ja bannaus | Antti Ronkainen | Neuvottelija 57”
Recorded six days after the storming of the Capitol and a week before the inauguration, researcher Antti Ronkainen reads the event as a chain of security failures with an unresolved question of intent at its centre. The episode covers why Trump was never capable of a conventional coup, the split between Republican 'gamers' and 'breakers', why holding the Senate would have served the party better than Trump did, and what the coordinated deplatforming of a sitting president means for the relationship between Big Tech and power. Miettinen argues a two-week gag would have been the wiser move than a permanent one.
Core theses
- Trump was never capable of a conventional coup — he had broken with the intelligence services and the military — but the collapse in Capitol security ahead of a session everyone had been warned about is hard to read as pure accident, and a bloodier confrontation would have supplied the pretext for emergency powers.
- The Republican Party contains 'gamers' who use every lawful means to hold power and treated Trump as an instrument for tax policy and judicial appointments, and 'breakers' who sustain the stolen-election claim and attack the institutions themselves — and the open question is whether the breakers keep living with the lie once Trump is gone.
- Trump probably cost his own party the Senate: by insisting the election was stolen he depressed Republican turnout in the Georgia runoffs, and a Republican Senate would have made Biden's two years far harder than impeachment ever will.
- The deplatforming was a category error of degree: a temporary two-week gag would have prevented further incitement, whereas permanent removal erased the record, invited a martyr narrative, and pushed the platforms towards a moderation regime that produces self-censorship and further bubbling.
- The most durable damage is not institutional but epistemic: the normalisation of the idea that one's own interpretation is sufficient, and the increase in political violence that follows from it — which does not stop at the American border.
Watch and listen
Key moments
- 00:00 — Six days after the Capitol
- 02:36 — How they got in, and how they got out
- 05:09 — Was there a plan at all?
- 07:44 — The senators who challenged certification
- 10:18 — Gamers and breakers
- 12:52 — Why the Senate mattered more than the presidency
- 15:23 — Never concede: the Roy Cohn lesson
- 17:53 — Impeach, or spend the two years governing?
- 20:37 — Big Tech, the Democrats and the martyr narrative
- 23:09 — Section 230 and platform liability
- 25:41 — Official truth and the China playbook
- 28:11 — Political violence after the inauguration
- 31:07 — The inside job question
- 33:37 — Alternative realities and the antifa claim
- 36:23 — Is Trump a fascist?
- 38:55 — Why culture wars cannot be won
- 41:31 — Is restoration the same as make it great again?
- 44:04 — Great powers watching, and Europe's absent platforms
- 46:35 — How Trump exits, and what the party keeps
Summary
Recorded six days after the storming of the Capitol and a week before the inauguration, researcher Antti Ronkainen reads the event as a chain of security failures with an unresolved question of intent at its centre. The episode covers why Trump was never capable of a conventional coup, the split between Republican ‘gamers’ and ‘breakers’, why holding the Senate would have served the party better than Trump did, and what the coordinated deplatforming of a sitting president means for the relationship between Big Tech and power. Miettinen argues a two-week gag would have been the wiser move than a permanent one.
What is discussed
- Two things were strange. That people got in so easily, and that they got out again without far more deaths — armed police and senators came close to occupying the same room.
- Security was at a normal weekend level. The FBI and police had warned, the National Guard had offered help, and the offer was declined; heads are already rolling.
- No grand plan, possibly a small one. Ronkainen’s reading: throw a fragmentation grenade, hope for enough chaos, and use it to justify emergency powers and suspend certification.
- Gamers versus breakers. One faction maximises power through lawful means and treats Trump as an instrument; the other sustains the stolen-election claim and attacks the institutions.
- Trump cost the Republicans the Senate. By insisting the vote was stolen he depressed turnout in the Georgia runoffs — and a Republican Senate would have hobbled Biden for two years.
- Never concede. Trump’s mentor Roy Cohn taught him personally never to admit defeat, and he has followed it without exception — including after his own 2016 win.
- A negotiation aside. Miettinen’s note on Jim Camp’s Start with No: hardball works when the other side is accommodating, but a room can only hold one immovable idiot.
- A martyr assembled from three pieces. Impeachment, state-level tax investigations, and the removal of his speech by Californian platforms — an unusually serviceable narrative for the movement he intends to keep.
- Two weeks, not forever. Miettinen’s position: a temporary gag would have prevented incitement without erasing the archive of his previous statements or setting a permanent moderation precedent.
- Section 230 and what follows. Guesses about what Trump might do in his final week, and about what a Democratic administration might demand of the platforms.
- Not fascism, narcissism. Ronkainen’s assessment: no ideology drives Trump, only his own ego — but the open question is whether this raises someone genuinely fascist with better military contacts.
- Culture wars cannot be won. Their rules are the rules of war, not of argument: the aim is chaos and humiliation, so the deeper you go in, the stronger the other side becomes.
- Is restoration forward-looking? If the Democratic promise is a return to the 1990s consensus, Miettinen asks whether that is not its own make-it-great-again.
- Europe has no platforms. The dependency is a sovereignty question, and Merkel’s objection to the ban was that such decisions should be made by law, not by a single company.
- What Miettinen actually fears. Not censorship exactly, but a drift towards an official truth and its official channels — the Chinese playbook, imported.
Watch
The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: Trumpin viraltapano ja bannaus | Antti Ronkainen | Neuvottelija 57. A Finnish edition of this episode is published at www.neuvottelija.fi.
People and topics
Guests: Antti Ronkainen
Topics: Geopolitics Free Speech & Society