Pyrrhic Victory is a victory that ‘inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is basically the same as defeat’.

If October 14 really is Australia’s ‘Brexit Moment’, then ‘No’ voters must prepare to feel the wrath of an elite class that didn’t get their way.

In other words, the ‘No’ cause may win on Saturday, but the other side is just getting started.

As we saw first with Brexit, and then with Trump, when the regime suffers a setback, it does not simply forgive and forget.

Consider that last month, United States President Joe Biden declared the former President Donald Trump’s MAGA campaign to be an ‘extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy’.

‘Their extreme agenda, if carried out, will fundamentally alter the institutions of American democracy as we know it.’

This is the latest escalation of rhetoric following a long list of vengeful maneuvers after Trump’s victory in 2016. It is a list made up of impeachments, arrests, and media attacks.

To simply call this Trump Derangement Syndrome would be a dangerous understatement.

A better description would be to call it ‘smart’ – a heavy-handed but ultimately necessary measure done to demoralise and deter any future Trump-like challenger.

It was a similar story in post-Brexit Britain, where the country’s exit from the European Union saw the political, media and corporate establishment band together to punish the majority of the country for the grave error of voting for themselves.

This was best reflected in the recent ‘debanking’ of Nigel Farage, ex-UKIP leader and Brexit power man, who revealed he had his bank account cancelled for supposedly holding ‘xenophobic, chauvinistic and racist views’.

‘This is about much more than Farage. In Woke companies, as well as in media, public bodies, charities and academia, people are being fired, sidelined, marginalised or generally penalised,’ wrote Andrew Neil.

‘It is a new form of McCarthyism. It is unfair, undemocratic and a waste of talent. The Farage case has merely flushed it out into the open.’

The regime’s message is loud and clear: step out of line and we’ll use every power we can to crush you.

Can we expect the same response in Australia after October 14?

If recent comments from key ‘Yes’ campaigners are anything to go by, then it paints an ugly picture for the years ahead.

The ‘d**kheads and dinosaurs’ comment from Ray Martin reflects, in my view, a wider class of opinion that appears to hold the majority in contempt, much the same in the US and UK.

‘If you’re against us, it’s not because you’ve got a different point of view, it’s because you’re either stupid, or you’re evil,’ is what the movement is telling us.

This dehumanisation of the opposing side is an undeniable pattern, designed to justify any future punishment they decide to mete out.

In a sane world, arresting Trump would seem to be a despotic and anti-democratic political attack.

But when Trump is the one cast as the despot and anti-democrat, with total support of the corporate and media class, it seems far more justifiable.

That’s the new game.

Casting your political enemy as an evil person that needs to be destroyed isn’t the usual push and shove of daily politics, it is a sharp acceleration toward what Tom Klingenstein calls a growing ‘Cold Civil War’.

And perhaps his analysis of post-Trump America could lend insight into what to expect after October 14.

‘We find ourselves in a Cold Civil War. But we have no real generals.

‘Winning a war requires two fundamental understandings. First, you must understand that you are, in fact, in a war. Wartime requires very different rhetoric, strategy, and people than peacetime.

‘Second, you must understand your enemy, what it wants, and how it goes about getting what it wants.’

Klingenstein goes on to suggest that Trump is America’s ‘war-time leader’ for their Cold Civil War. One of the only few who really knows what he’s up against.

But is Australia’s conservative leadership ready for what they’re up against?

Prime Minister Albanese has already signalled he wants the next debate to be about accelerating the transition to low emissions.

And he will no doubt get his way.

This means more division, more dehumanisation, and more power grabbing is coming.

But will we start to see debanking, cancellation and political attacks, as we’ve seen overseas?

Now’s the time to find our own culture-war-time generals.