THE TRUMP PARASITE

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The Founding Fathers certainly didn't see this coming

by Colin Liddell

A parasite is a creature that oversteps the mark with regard to symbiosis and which prioritises its own interests at the expense of the host. If it chooses a weak host or overdoes the parasitism, the host may sicken and die, in which case the parasite will probably die too or at least suffer badly.

All politicians exist either in symbiosis with the political entities that host them, or else in various degrees of parasitism. So, which one is Trump? 

There are various possible answers to this question, but before we go there, we need a little more definition of the host. Just what is America, and what has it been trying to do?

America, as is well known, is the preeminent global power and is often called an "empire." It is an amalgam of hard financial and military power and soft economic, moral, and cultural power. But, more than this, it exists at a level of complexity, and its trajectory over the last several decades has been towards increasing complexity. In fact, many of its most infamous problems come from this aspiration towards complexity.

So, what does this "complexity" involve?

Various things, like the attempt to create a post-racial society and the socialisation of atomization (i.e. a new way for extreme individualism to exist in a social context). There is also the complexity that comes from the attempt to rejig sexual and gender categories in a way that is 100% inclusive. Another aspect of this aspiration is towards a kind of frictionless international hegemony where, ideally, America's interests are also the world's interests -- and even the interests of each and every state!

Suffice to say, America's aspiration to complexity is one of breathtaking ambition.

The problem with this, however, can be summed up by the simple formula:

Aspiring to complexity generates stupidity, while reverting to simplicity generates competence.

This is because the amount of available intelligence in a given society tends to grow in an arithmetical progression, while the problems created by growing layers of complexity grow in geometric progression (yes, this is borrowed and repurposed from Malthus).

Of course, this may change once Artificial Intelligence becomes "sovereign" (a rather disturbing phrase!), but until it does, I think this relationship holds true. 

So, in this context, what kind of parasite is Trump, or does he even exist in healthy symbiosis with the American political entity?

Trump's main political push in recent days can be typified by "common sense" policies, essentially the attempt to generate competence by reverting to simplicity.

• Instead of the complexity of new "greener" energy solutions and difficult to calculate impacts on global weather, he reverts to the tried and tested means of cheap gas.
• Instead of the complexity of redrawing the gender map, he reverts to the simplicity of male-female.
• Instead of the complexity of a massive migrant population existing in a no-man's-land between citizen and non-citizen, he prefers the clarity of legal and illegal.
• Instead of the complexities of international organisations and carefully woven diplomatic consensus and occasional obfuscation, he prefers the simplicity of America being the biggest gorilla in the jungle and asserting its "alpha male" prerogatives.

All of Trump's moves in recent days show this same characteristic towards simplicity over complexity. This generates an instant "competence" dividend -- clarity, positive action, economic kick, fleeting dominance, etc., that Trump can then convert into political capital to keep his political machine going.

But, where do the calories of this political capital come from? In other words, what part of the American body politic is Trump feasting on the most, and does that make him a parasite or a poultice drawing out the poisons?

Clearly it is that part of the American state that has grown up in the wake of its geometric aspiration towards greater complexity in the last 70 to 80 years.

Whether this will produce a leaner, meaner, healthier America -- allowing Trump to be seen as a symbiotic entity despite all his blatant corruption -- or else a blinded and bumbling behemoth, shorn of much of its soft power, while being internally riven and out of place in an increasingly chaotic world, remains to be seen.

My guess is that Trump will ultimately get enmeshed in his own complexity.

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Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Neokrat and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the dead and the famous. Support his work by buying his book here (USA), here (UK), and here (Australia), or by taking out a paid subscription on his Substack.

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