DeTrumpification
Originally published in October 2020 (just before the election)
Remember, this report was published before the election in November 2020.
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A Biden victory will unleash an aggressive campaign to de-Trumpify America. Let’s dig into this.
From Opposition to Enemy
In the last year, the mainstream opposition to Trump has shifted dramatically. It’s tribal now. You can see it in the language used to describe both him and his supporters.
Less than a year ago, he was an incompetent and crass political opponent with naive and gullible supporters.
That changed with COVID. COVID catalyzed the growth of the networked tribes that opposed Trump. Now, it’s mainstream to characterize Trump and his supporters as tribal enemies.
For example, Trump and his supporters aren’t just political opponents anymore. They are now fascists (anti-fascist tribe) and racists (anti-racism tribe)—people who represent an imminent threat.
A Brush with Dictatorship
This new tribal frame (good vs. evil) has turned this election into an apocalyptic event.
It’s either support for democracy (Biden) or support for a fascist, racist dictatorship (Trump).
It has also led to rampant fear within the tribal and establishment left (despite a lack of much evidence to support it) that Trump will attempt a coup d’etat. For example, he will either refuse to leave the White House after a loss in the polls - or - encourage rightwing groups to mount an armed revolt - or - fabricate a national crisis to seize power in a military coup.
This tribal frame means that a Biden presidency isn’t merely a hard-won victory in a contested election. It will be the only chance to prevent a fascist, white supremacist dictatorship in the future. A dictatorship that may reemerge in four years unless the nation undergoes rapid and complete de-Trumpification.
De-Trumpification?
This term comes from de-Nazification after WW2 and de-Baathification after the invasion of Iraq. It’s a campaign to systematically:
Discredit the leaders (Trump), the party (Trump’s GOP), and key supporters of its ideology (Trumpism). Show them to be corrupt, incompetent, and evil.
Remove all influence of the movement. Remove people who support Trump and Trumpism from positions of power in the government and society. Actively suppress any ideas associated with Trumpism.
Make systemic changes to ensure that Trumpism never re-emerges in any form.
De-Trumpification in Action
This campaign will have three phases:
Discredit through unrestricted Lawfare.
Remove through ubiquitous AI censorship and Domestic counter-insurgency.
Prevent by changing the structure of the Government.
Let’s look at each of these elements in detail.
Unrestrained Lawfare
Once Trump is out of office, unrestrained lawfare will begin. Targets include Trump, the Trump family, Trump associates, Trump businesses, former members of the Trump administration, Trump political appointees, etc.
There will be investigations galore -- by Congress, the Justice Department, and coalitions of states. Every major institution capable of investigating administration members will do so, and they will saddle every target with massive legal bills.
Corruption prosecutions. For de-Trumpification, this’ will’ demonstrate that Trump and his associates are a corrupt, criminal enterprise. For example, Trump businesses and the Trump campaign for tax and campaign law violations.
This lawfare will aggressively attack the politicians and party bureaucrats who supported Trump, making it possible for Establishment Republicans to seize control of the GOP and pass rules to prevent future Trumps from taking over the party (again).
Tech Censorship
Next, networked tribes on the left with the full support of the Establishment will coerce the technology companies to eradicate everything in the information environment associated with Trump.
Once out of office, Facebook and Twitter will permanently ban Trump’s accounts.
Next, media organizations, groups, and personalities that either supported Trump (or weren’t aggressively opposed to him) will be rapidly de-platformed (we already see this). Selective use of the network’s Terms of Service will justify this action.
Most importantly, these efforts will force the creation and the use of a systemic architecture capable of actively censoring billions of people in real time.
Domestic Counter-insurgency
After the election, domestic terror attacks by individuals connected to the right-wing will be grounds for launching a domestic counter-insurgency campaign -- something that is already being pushed by a large and growing industry of specialists and experts on right-wing terrorism. Here are some highlights:
This campaign will feature billions of dollars of funding at the start -- with more on the way as the mission creeps -- and new legal powers based on provisions put in place after 9/11. This financial feedback loop provides the corporate and professional support required to ensure an endless expansion of the effort.
At the center of this effort will be a tech-fueled enemies list --- a state-sanctioned enemies list, created by corporations at the behest of the government, of people who support domestic violence and adjacent ideologies. Additionally, there will be a proliferation of open-source lists of fascist/racist enemies built by the networked tribes (already in motion). Companies will use these lists to determine who allowed access to their services (from dating to retail to travel.
A sprawling re-education effort. As de-Trumpification grows online, we’ll increasingly see tribal patterns used as the template for determining status -- who needs re-education or punishment (deplatforming, removal from a job, etc.)? These tribal patterns will fuel the training of network AIs that identify “racists, colonialists, misogynists, fascists, etc.” living and working among us in real-time so that they may be punished and rehabilitated. Constant, automated reeducation is likely.
Structural Reform
Finally, if a Biden victory also flips the Senate (NOTE: This didn’t happen), we will see structural changes to the government to prevent the “evil” of Trumpism from gaining power again:
The Supreme Court. How? By significantly expanding the Supreme Court’s size to change its ideological balance (“packing the court”).
The Senate. Adding new states (DC and Puerto Rico) to add four new Senators to the mix and lock in Democratic dominance.
The Presidency. Eliminate the electoral college to allow the popular vote to determine the president. Doing this through an amendment to the Constitution is difficult. A more likely route is to use the opportunity to get a dominant number of states to sign something like the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (an agreement that is likely to win a Constitutional challenge with a new, larger Supreme Court).
What this Means
Will we see De-Trumpification? In part, with a Biden victory, yes. Here are some of the things that could slow it down:
Republican remnants prevent an overrun (a close win, no Senate). That outcome would block structural reform and make it harder/impossible to get a domestic counter-insurgency effort funded.
Tribal infighting. In any outcome, particularly a complete sweep, the networked tribes of the left will increasingly see the Democratic Establishment as the new enemy -- this will happen quickly if the Democrats don’t take fast, aligned action once they gain power. While the Republicans are reorganizing, the tribal left will become the main opposition to the Democratic majority in power.
The Tribal Right emerges. A partial victory and tribal infighting between the left and the establishment could provide some breathing space for a tribal right to appear. This tribe formation won’t form around support for an individual (if it does, it will fail). Instead, it will develop to oppose a pattern of anti-Americanism on the left (as is often the case, weakness leads to rapid innovation). The big obstacle to this effort? The tech platforms. If the tech platforms align with the tribal left too quickly, the tribal right will grow too slow to matter before the long night is locked in.