We Need to Prepare for Trump 2.0 Now
All is not lost if we make adequate preparations to defend freedom
Over the past three weeks, along with many other people, I repeatedly made the case that the elite driven attempt to get President Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 US Presidential Elections is not going to be easily forgiven by voters. We warned that an elite initiated coup, with support from rich celebrities like George Clooney and woke influencers and journalists, doesn’t look good. We warned that if it looks like Biden is being forced out, voters will react very negatively, like they did towards the British Conservatives in 2022–24 after ousting Boris Johnson, and Australian Labor in 2010–13 after ousting Kevin Rudd. We also warned that the loss of the advantage of incumbency is a huge thing, especially since Trump himself probably has a semi-incumbency advantage, unlike most presidential challengers. Still, these concerns were ignored, and now they have finally successfully forced Biden to quit. Meanwhile, all the aforementioned concerns still stand. Therefore, I have to sadly conclude that a Trump victory in November, followed by four more years of Trump in the White House, now seems inevitable. I have nothing against Kamala Harris, none of this is her fault, and I wish her all the best. Still, I think it’s time to face reality, so we can be well prepared for the next four years.
From the point of view of a classical liberal like myself, the return of Trump, a man with strongly authoritarian and populist instincts, as America’s president, and de-facto leader of the Western world, is certainly not good news. Even more worrying is his pick of JD Vance as vice president. It is very scary that, in half a year’s time, America will have a vice president who has expressed sympathy towards the ideas of extremely authoritarian thinkers previously only known mostly by the very online far-right. I shudder to think how these ideas could influence the policy decisions of the Trump-Vance administration. There’s also the worry about The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. Although Trump says he has nothing to do with the project, and I actually believe him, it really can’t be denied that The Heritage Foundation has long had a strong influence on Republican administrations, and its recent authoritarian turn could have a strong impact on the Trump-Vance administration. Furthermore, Trump himself is a much changed man, ever since he lost the 2020 election. He has become bitter and angry, and has demonstrated a strong appetite for revenge that was previously unknown. All these factors make me think that the Trump-Vance administration of 2025–2029 could be much more illiberal than the Trump-Pence administration of 2017–2021. This, combined with the rise of authoritarian-right populism in Europe, could move the Overton Window of the West decidedly towards authoritarianism, with long-term serious effects.
Still, not all is lost, because politics is not just what happens at the highest levels of power. It is also how other people respond to the actions being taken by those in power, and the general discourse out there in the real world. As long as there is a coordinated effort to defend individual liberty and the values associated with freedom, there is a fighting chance that freedom will not be too badly damaged in the next four years, and survive to see another liberal revival, perhaps as soon as in 2029. To achieve this outcome, we need to make the case for freedom, repeatedly, vigorously, frequently, and unapologetically. We need to continuously make the case for freedom, and call out the Trump-Vance administration whenever they attempt to make an illiberal move, no matter how big or small. To prepare for this, we need to start thinking about how to make the case for freedom, especially in the face of the inevitable counter-arguments from the illiberal right. In particular, we need to think about the various possible contexts in which the conflict between classical liberal philosophy and illiberal-populist philosophy could take place in the next four years, and be ready for whatever populist angle or argument the New Right will be throwing at us. We need to make sure that their attempts to discredit classical liberal values will only backfire, and end up discrediting the illiberal right itself. Besides making the argument for liberty itself, we also need to make sure we adequately defend the conditions that enable freedom to thrive, like a free and fair marketplace of ideas, compassion, and a commitment to objectivity and empiricism. Central to this effort would be an attempt to revive and defend not just classical liberal thinking, but also genuine conservative thinking descended from thinkers like Edmund Burke. I have long made the case that only by reviving true conservatism can we provide a compelling alternative to stop the New Right, and it’s important that we really put this into practice in the next four years.
We also need to make sure the opposition to Trump isn’t dominated by wokeness, as it often was back in Trump’s first term. If the conversation becomes about Trumpism vs Wokeism, the illiberalism on both sides will only end up reinforcing each other, taking us into an endless downward spiral towards ever increasing authoritarianism. Back in 2017, in the early days of Trump’s presidency, various identity politics activists tried to make the opposition to Trump about intersectional identity politics, with strong influence from postmodern critical theory. Thus, Trump’s supporters were painted as white supremacists in a broad brush, and the resistance to Trump became a vehicle for the rise of wokeness. This turned the political and cultural landscape into an oppressor vs oppressed, us-vs-them landscape, with illiberal consequences like cancel culture running rampant. All this ultimately helped pave the way for Trump’s return. This time, we must do things differently. Classical liberals must lead the opposition to Trumpism, and prevent it from being dominated by woke identity politics activists. We must make the case against Trumpism on the grounds of freedom, rationality and universal values, not tribalism, postmodernism and critical theory. Again, to achieve this, we need to start gearing up to make these arguments now.
Originally published at https://taraella2.substack.com.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Moral Libertarian Manifesto and the Moral Libertarian book series, which argue that liberalism is still the most moral and effective value system for the West.
She is also the author of The Trans Case Against Queer Theory and The TaraElla Story (her autobiography).
