Many commentators, including me, together have spilled billions of pixels attempting to explain the riddle of Donald Trump’s uncanny appeal. There may be one simple, striking, explanation. It is implied by James Piereson in his new book Shattered Consensus. It may well be that Trump’s appeal is his implicit promise to end political parasitism.
Sometimes the political parasites are termed “special interests.” This epithet can be applied equally to Big Government and Wall Street, Big Business and Big Labor. There are those who game the system to take out more than they contribute. If the federal government has become a siphon of the fruit of our honest labor into the pockets of the special interests — the parasites — this is a legitimate, and hot, grievance.
This is not a new thing. Consider among the particulars recited in the Declaration of Independence as a grievance against King George: “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.”
Given the last 15 years of economic stagnation it has intensified. And the elites, who are doing OK, may be purblind to it.
Ralph Benko, internationally published weekly columnist, co-author of The 21st Century Gold Standard, lead co-editor of the Gerald Malsbary translation from Latin to English of Copernicus’s Essay on Money, is American Principles Project’s Senior Advisor, Economics.
