If you’re old enough to vote in the United States, then you’re old enough to remember a time when Americans of all political stripes liked Donald Trump. A public figure for most of his adult life, a businessman with a taste for luxury, and a showman who embodied the “American dream,” Trump appeared in television shows and movies because people enjoyed seeing him. For decades, he was an American icon with universal name recognition, a global brand, and even a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Then he moved into the political arena, and everything changed. Actors, musicians, and politicians who had once jumped at the chance to be photographed with him pretended they had never met. Writers and entertainers who had always praised him for his generosity began calling him filthy names. Television networks that had made boatloads of money from his goodwill with the public started slandering him as a “wannabe dictator,” a “Nazi,” and a “threat to democracy.”
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What happened? Donald Trump dared to challenge the political status quo. By publicly questioning the economic and foreign policy decisions of the Establishment Class in Washington, D.C., he became an existential threat to a system that has long worked against the interests of the American people. As David Plouffe, one of Barack Obama’s closest advisers, inveighed before the 2016 presidential election: “It is not enough to beat Trump. He must be destroyed thoroughly. His kind must not be allowed to rise again.” Plouffe had harsher words for the guy with a wholesome cameo in Home Alone 2 than he ever had for the leaders of China, Hamas, or Iran.
Why is this one American’s voice so threatening to the old guard? It’s simple: President Trump is (1) a political outsider who (2) rejects the supremacy of the administrative state and (3) prioritizes Americans over foreign nationals.
It might seem strange to call Donald Trump an “outsider.” He’s a billionaire. He’s famous. He’s served as president of the United States. But for all his success, wealth, and celebrity, he is not a member of the ruling political class. If that were not obvious when the Intelligence Community conspired with Hillary Clinton’s campaign to frame him as a Russian spy, it should have become glaringly so over the last eight years as the FBI, DOJ, and Democrat prosecutors have dragged him through an endless spectacle of malicious investigations and corruptly predicated criminal trials. Trump lived a long life without any criminal record. Because he beat the Clinton, Obama, and Establishment Republican political machines, unethical prosecutors want him behind bars until he dies.
Americans can be forgiven for naïvely believing that any child can grow up to be president — or at least enjoy a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington moment in the halls of the nation’s capitol. We have been told from an early age that America’s system of government is of, by, and for the people. We are ostensibly a constitutional republic that protects individual rights, free speech, and representative democracy. Everyone is supposed to have a voice and an opportunity to influence the way our government runs.
The reality is much less inspiring. An unelected and unconstitutional administrative state does most of the actual “governing.” Corporate lobbyists and other special interests write the legislative bills that eventually become law. Agencies issue rules and regulations with far-reaching consequences yet few checks and balances. Most members of Congress do not grasp the significance of their votes or understand how American tax dollars are really spent. The permanent bureaucracy is so large that even veteran lawmakers would struggle to draw an organizational chart that accurately reflects the various committees and sub-groups of the Department of Transportation — let alone something as complex and saturated with “black budget” appropriations as the Department of Defense.
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The American people could never hope to control a Leviathan with so many tentacles, and such an autonomous, unruly beast would never deign to consult the public before it acts. There can be no Mr. Smith because there is no representative democracy. The federal government works for itself, enriches itself, and empowers itself. To the vast administrative state, the people are a nuisance to be deceived, mocked, and ignored. The Washington Post’s self-flattering slogan, “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” is a cruel taunt reminding Americans that D.C. has been dark for more than one hundred years.
One of the chief ways that the U.S. government clings to the darkness is by controlling who is allowed inside its ranks. Big Government socialists are good for regulatory expansion. War hawks are handy for feeding the Pentagon and sustaining the military machine. Empire-builders keep the State Department and Intelligence Community busy with world conquest. Marxists are useful because government is their god, and it’s always helpful to have people worshiping a thing that wishes to act with impunity. What’s not helpful is an independently wealthy and independently minded businessman with his own ideas for how the U.S. government can best assist the American people.
