Ants of the World, Unite

Donald Trump's strength as a president was not that he was better at running the country. It was that he believed in taking a hands-off approach and letting Americans run our own country with far less interference from elected officials or unelected bureaucrats. The economy boomed under Trump not because of the government but because of the inspiration and hard work of millions of Americans.

That's the way America is supposed to be. That's how it was designed to be.

And that is precisely what most Democrats — and a lot of Republicans — don't want Americans to do. Or insist upon doing. Or even remember how to do.

The level of panic and hysteria from the Left during Trump's first term was inexplicable. It bordered on insanity and was utterly unhinged from reality. Trump was a fascist! He was going to destroy the country! He was going to start some crazy war!

Now it's clear why they were hysterical.

Trump's election peeled away the facade and revealed the incompetence and outright destructiveness of our government: Democrats, certainly; Republicans, often; and the massive bureaucracy in the D.C. swamp, almost always, regardless of nominal party affiliation.

Contrast Trump's four years with the staggering pace of disintegration under President Joe Biden in just over one year. Literally millions of migrants are crossing our borders illegally, unvaccinated and unvetted, and he is busing and flying them all across the country under cover of night. His energy policies have crippled America's energy independence, sending oil prices, and therefore, all prices, skyrocketing. Inflation is roaring at levels not seen for 40 years. He pushes for the continuation of pandemic policies that have crushed small businesses. His Justice Department is calling irate parents at school board meetings and anyone questioning the government's COVID-19 propaganda "domestic terrorists."

In truth, we shouldn't be surprised that the nation goes to hell in a handbasket when it's being run by Democrats. Just look at the states and cities run by Democrats. Their taxes are high. Their crime rates are soaring, as they defund police and release criminals back into the population. Their streets are filled with the shantytowns of homeless people, drug addicts and the mentally ill. They defend porn and promote promiscuity and gender confusion in public schools. Meanwhile, the test scores of American students continue to decline relative to the rest of the developed world. Entire swaths of the cities they govern decay, while the wealthy live in gated communities.

Democrats have been doing this for decades. They argue for the implementation of policies to solve a particular problem. Their policies make the problem worse. Then they demand more of the same policies, more agencies to implement those policies, more money to fund those agencies, more taxes to provide the money.

Republicans are little better. Instead of repealing bad laws or eliminating runaway bureaucracies, Republicans posture, demanding "oversight" and "accountability." This translates at best to congressional hearings where culpable people can lie with impunity and without consequences — and that's if they show up at all. At worse, it results in new agencies devoted to "oversight" and "accountability." GOP candidates campaign promising to rein in out-of-control spending but don't do it once elected. Democrats and Republicans both know how this game works. Democrats want a 50% increase in spending on some boondoggle, so they'll ask for a 75% increase. Republicans then insist upon and get a 15% reduction in the spending demand. So, Democrats get a 60% increase, and both sides crow about their victories.

Meanwhile, the American taxpayers get screwed.

Those in Congress routinely vote to exempt themselves from laws they pass that bind the rest of Americans. They raise their own salaries. They and their family members buy and sell stock in companies that will be affected by laws they pass. This is just another form of insider trading — something that would send the rest of us to prison. They refuse, unsurprisingly, to pass term limits.

And now, another pointless war looms that has nothing to do with the United States. If Europe does not want Russia re-annexing Ukraine, Europe can fight Vladimir Putin off. Putin is marching into Ukraine because he knows Europe is toothless, and Biden has, charitably speaking, diminished mental capacity. Where are the Republicans? Predictably, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declares, "We must arm Ukraine!"

So, which major defense contractors have been cozying up to McConnell? And who was going to get us into another crazy war? Trump was the first president in years who did not launch a war of any sort.

Government in America has become a lucrative racket. That is made worse because government has become pervasive and omnipresent. To justify their existence, those profiting from the government racket need chaos; they need crime; they need violence; they need poverty; they need addiction; they need conflict; they need war. The difference between Democrats and Republicans has become one only of degree.

Until Trump, most Americans assumed that this was the only way it could be. But the four years of peace and prosperity under Trump revealed that the racketeers and bureaucrats need us, but we don't need them.

That — not his ego, or his mean tweets, or his phone call to the president of Ukraine, or his insistence that the 2020 election was stolen (it was) — was Trump's truly unforgivable sin.

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Living in the United States at the moment feels like the 1998 Pixar film "A Bug's Life." In the primary plot, a handful of grasshoppers bully and terrorize an ant colony into harvesting and providing food for them, year after year after year. When one ant, Flik, stands up for the ants, a couple of the grasshoppers want to shrug it off. "He's just a puny ant," they scoff.

The head bully, Hopper, won't stand for it. "You let one ant stand up to us," Hopper warns, "then they might all stand up. Those puny little ants outnumber us a hundred to one. And if they ever figure that out, there goes our way of life."

We've figured it out. Ants of the world, unite.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Laura Hirschfeld Hollis is on the faculty at the University of Notre Dame, where she teaches courses in business law and entrepreneurship. She has received numerous awards for her teaching, research, community service and contributions to entrepreneurship education.