---
title: "Trump's impeachment and deplatforming | Antti Ronkainen | Negotiator 57"
titleOriginal: "Trumpin viraltapano ja bannaus | Antti Ronkainen | Neuvottelija 57"
episodeNumber: "57"
guest: "Antti Ronkainen"
datePublished: 2021-01-12
duration: "48:46"
youtube: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsliNbP0Zws"
captionsVtt: https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep57-trumpin-viraltapano-ja-bannaus-antti-ronkainen/captions.en.vtt
captionsSrt: https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep57-trumpin-viraltapano-ja-bannaus-antti-ronkainen/captions.en.srt
originalLanguage: "fi"
topics: ["geopolitics","free_speech_society"]
subtitleMethod: "none"
provenance: "Owner page assembled from the MacWhisper SRT transcript, YouTube metadata and the neuvottelija.fi episode record. Chapter timecodes are taken from the transcript; no caption files are published with this page."
fiCanonical: "https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/63-neuvottelija-57-trumpin-viraltapano-ja-bannaus-antti-ronkain"
canonical: https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep57-trumpin-viraltapano-ja-bannaus-antti-ronkainen/
---
# Trump's impeachment and deplatforming | Antti Ronkainen | Negotiator 57

## Chapters

- [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsliNbP0Zws&t=0s) Six days after the Capitol
- [02:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsliNbP0Zws&t=156s) How they got in, and how they got out
- [05:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsliNbP0Zws&t=309s) Was there a plan at all?
- [07:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsliNbP0Zws&t=464s) The senators who challenged certification
- [10:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsliNbP0Zws&t=618s) Gamers and breakers
- [12:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsliNbP0Zws&t=772s) Why the Senate mattered more than the presidency
- [15:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsliNbP0Zws&t=923s) Never concede: the Roy Cohn lesson
- [17:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsliNbP0Zws&t=1073s) Impeach, or spend the two years governing?
- [20:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsliNbP0Zws&t=1237s) Big Tech, the Democrats and the martyr narrative
- [23:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsliNbP0Zws&t=1389s) Section 230 and platform liability
- [25:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsliNbP0Zws&t=1541s) Official truth and the China playbook
- [28:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsliNbP0Zws&t=1691s) Political violence after the inauguration
- [31:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsliNbP0Zws&t=1867s) The inside job question
- [33:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsliNbP0Zws&t=2017s) Alternative realities and the antifa claim
- [36:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsliNbP0Zws&t=2183s) Is Trump a fascist?
- [38:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsliNbP0Zws&t=2335s) Why culture wars cannot be won
- [41:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsliNbP0Zws&t=2491s) Is restoration the same as make it great again?
- [44:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsliNbP0Zws&t=2644s) Great powers watching, and Europe's absent platforms
- [46:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsliNbP0Zws&t=2795s) 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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsliNbP0Zws).
A Finnish edition of this episode is published at [www.neuvottelija.fi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/63-neuvottelija-57-trumpin-viraltapano-ja-bannaus-antti-ronkain).

---

Cite as: Sami Miettinen, Neuvottelija — Trump's impeachment and deplatforming | Antti Ronkainen | Negotiator 57, https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep57-trumpin-viraltapano-ja-bannaus-antti-ronkainen/, 2021-01-12. For quotes include episode 57 and timestamp.