The Grifter in the Middle
Trump and the Politics of Parasite Profit
There’s an old Italian proverb that says, “Tra due litiganti, il terzo gode”, (while two quarrel, the third enjoys the benefit). It’s supposed to be a cautionary aphorism about the dangers of division and distraction. But in the age of Trump, it reads more like an instruction manual. A single-line playbook that Donald Trump has perfected, politically, financially, culturally, and played on loop for decades.
Where others seek compromise or conquest, Trump seeks collision. Not to resolve it, but to feed on it. He is not a businessman in any traditional sense. He builds no enduring value, resolves no lasting problems, and leaves no functioning institution in his wake. His empire, whether real estate, television, politics, or social media, is not one of construction, but of combustion. Wherever two forces clash, Trump inserts himself, not as a negotiator, but as a parasite. A grifter who profits from the wounds of others and ensures that no resolution occurs unless he is its beneficiary.
He doesn’t believe in win-win. There is no such thing in his universe. He operates by a zero-sum theology so stripped of nuance that it would be laughable if it weren’t so effective. If someone else wins, he loses. And if he wins, everyone else must bleed. That is not a strategy. It is a reflex. A virus. A single-cell organism that has learned how to exploit a fractured immune system called democracy.
America, indeed the world, has spent years waiting for Donald Trump to become presidential. To wear the weight of the office. To rise to the dignity of leadership. But Trump is immune to weight. Gravity does not apply. He is made of Teflon, not because he is strong, but because he is hollow. He absorbs nothing, reflects everything, and persists not by merit, but by metastasis, like a tumour that survives by outpacing the body's own attempts to kill it.
What his followers mistake for genius is simply shamelessness. What pundits mistake for resilience is narrative dominance. And what the opposition fails to understand is that by engaging him, they serve him. In Trump’s world, the fight is the fuel. Outrage is oxygen. Media coverage, even when critical, is the currency that keeps his empire afloat. And the more sophisticated the attack, the more it feeds the spectacle.
He doesn't negotiate peace. He delays collapse, just long enough to collect the spoils. And then, as with every casino, charity, university, or marriage he's touched, he leaves behind only ash, debt, lawsuits, and broken believers.
His genius, if we are to call it that, is not in building anything. It is in being the third party that always benefits while the two sides destroy each other. And in doing so, he converts conflict into profit, rage into relevance, and systemic failure into personal gain.
But let us be clear: this is not sustainable. Parasites do not create life. They require a host. And over time, even the strongest hosts, nations, parties, institutions, movements, either expel them or die from their depletion. Trump has made a fortune and a legacy from the blood of those who fought each other at his altar. But friends and foes alike meet the same fate: bankruptcy, irrelevance, or betrayal.
History will not remember him as a leader. It will not even remember him as a tyrant. It will remember him as a glitch, an exploit in the code of a distracted, disoriented society. The man who turned conflict into currency and left the bill at the feet of a nation too enthralled to notice.
And so the question remains: how many more quarrels will we manufacture for his benefit, before we realise we were never the protagonists, only the puppets?
And here’s the cruel beauty of it: once you see it, you cannot unsee it.
You begin to notice it in every trial, every tweet, every headline. Trump doesn’t thrive despite the conflict; he thrives because of it. Not through strategy, but through sabotage. Not through deals, but through division.
He is the third figure in every fight. Not a warrior. Not a judge. Just the one who profits.
Tra due litiganti, il terzo gode. And until we break that cycle, until we stop playing our assigned roles in his theatre of outrage, he will keep enjoying.