Donald Trump famously declared that his administration would produce so much success that Americans might get “tired of winning”. He often joked that supporters would beg him to stop winning because it was “too much”, promising to continue winning regardless. In 2026, he reiterated this theme, claiming Americans were “exhausted” by excessive winning. So, is too much success a bad thing?

Well, yes, if you are a parasite, too much success is a very bad thing indeed. If you kill the host too quickly, you prevent the ability of a virus to spread to new hosts. In other words, you can succeed your way to failure if you are in a parasitic relationship. And most social groups are predicated on a form of parasitic relationship. All communities include personal ties, communication networks, give and take, support, interdependence, etc.

Here’s what unsuccessful parasites do, as patterns:

  • Extract too aggressively
  • Deplete the resource base
  • Collapse the system they depend on

When these things happen, the host dies before the parasite can spread to a new living host, and therefore, the parasite ends up engineering its own defeat.

And of course, governments are not the only “parasitic” relationships or systems out there. So are companies, families, and religions. Basically all human systems operate in a similar way and are vulnerable to these same patterns.

The over-extraction problem. In biology, a parasite that takes too much energy leads to the host dying (which causes the parasite to die out). In a human organization that extracts too much time, loyalty, money, or labor, people burn out, disengage, move to less demanding organizations, or leave altogether. For example:

  • Companies that demand extreme hours eventually find it hard to attract top talent.
  • Religions that demand total conformity lose membership.
  • Governments that overtax or use taxes to enrich leaders result in economic decline.

The system ultimately weakens its own ability to extract by taking more than it gives.

The behavioral-hijacking problem. In biology, some hosts behave in ways that increase risk (e.g. rodents approach cats). This can also happen in human systems when people are encouraged to act against their own long-term interests:

  • Work cultures that glorify burnout and self-sacrifice
  • Ideologies that discourage or punish questioning
  • Groups that reward self-sacrifice beyond sustainability

These groups will find that they gain short-term compliance with long-term damage. The example that immediately came to mind on this one is the magazine drives Gen X (and earlier) kids were encouraged to do. We got rewards for knocking on random doors to get them to buy things for the school. That’s how I got bit on the face by someone’s German shephard when I was five.

The visibility & containment problem. Diseases like Ebola follow this pattern–they strike with such immediately visible devastation that they are contained quickly and eradicated. Similar things can happen in human systems when they allow or foster:

  • high-profile scandals
  • abuse allegations
  • financial collapse

These highly visible events alert the “host” that all is not well in Zion. They trigger backlash, regulation, lawsuits, protests, or mass exits. People resist when the harm is made really obvious or egregious.

The failure to adapt problem. When a more lethal strain (e.g. Myxoma virus) dies out, it is often replaced by a more successful less-lethal strain. Likewise, organizations with rigid ideologies that can’t soften or won’t evolve often die out and are replaced by more flexible systems. Some examples include:

  • Organizations that can’t adapt to cultural change
  • Movements that double down instead of reforming

Flexibility leads to survival. Rigidity leads to decline. An LDS example that came to mind was the uproar when bishops started using temple recommend interviews to ask couples, disapprovingly, about birth control and oral sex. Members en masse disagreed with their local dentist/bishop intruding on intimate matters in their marriage. Church headquarters heard about the outcry, quickly reversing course. They changed policy to leave these matters up to couples and keep bishops from prurient fishing expeditions. We all know for a fact that if they hadn’t gotten pushback, those questions would have stayed. They weren’t being asked by accident.

The resource collapse problem. Beehives infected with the Varroa destructor quickly collapsed, with the destruction spreading from drone to drone. When you deplete your base (workers, believers, citizens), the system collapses. Examples from human systems:

  • Overworked employees don’t actually work harder long-term. Eventually, productivity drops, workers leave, and resentful workers commit sabotage.
  • Disillusioned members will not invite friends to join, and missionary efforts stall as members exit.
  • Distrust in institutions leads to civic breakdown as citizens rebel against taxation without benefits (or in the case of gerrymandering, taxation without representation–seems we haven’t learned the lessons of our own history).

When the host is gone, the system collapses. The LDS example I thought of is the near impossibility many wards have of filling the building cleaning roster. It’s almost always the same families over and over, and it’s bad enough that most wards just assign based on last initial and hope that out of the 20 families they’ve “voluntold” at least one will show up. Likewise, some wards have had such a hard time filling callings that callings have been collapsed (e.g. bishopric now leads YM organization?).

To summarize, self-defeating systems (like unsuccessful parasites) usually optimize for:

  • loyalty now
  • growth now
  • control now

But ignore:

  • sustainability
  • human limits
  • trust

Here are some questions you can ask to determine if a system is self-defeating:

  • Extraction: Is the system taking more than it’s giving?
  • Adaptation: Does the organization change when conditions change?
  • Autonomy: Are participants allowed to question or leave safely?
  • Regeneration: Can the organization attract and retain new members sustainably?
  • Feedback: Does the system respond to criticism–or suppress it?

Any system or organization with several “no”s is at risk of being “too successful” and killing its host. Particularly when systems filter out internal critics, reward loyalty over truth, and punish dissent, they are incapable of stopping themselves from increasing harm, which leads to reduced feedback, more extreme behavior, and faster decline of the system and the people within it.

As a Trekker, I can’t possibly talk about parasites and not mention the Trill species. Originally introduced as a kind of kooky love interest for Beverly Crusher in a throwaway episode of Next Generation, we really gain understanding of how this symbiotic species developed as a culture with the Dax symbiont in Deep Space Nine. The Trill species evolved over time from a not-very-promising human species and a highly intelligent but physically limited worm-like species making the choice to join. In the original Next Generation introductory episode, the humanoid part of the Trill were little more than disposable meat puppets, used by the superior parasitic worm-creatures who inhabited them. By Deep Space Nine, symbionts were only joined with the elite humanoids–those with very high levels of personal accomplishment, so that both were bringing something significant to the relationship. The symbiont (the worm-like creature) would survive through 6 or 7 human hosts, and would continue to pass on the knowledge and experiences of these lifetimes to new hosts through rituals and shared consciousness.

Like the Trill species, a truly successful organization has to contribute to the flourishing of the people in the system, not just to the leaders or an elite class who extract value from the body.

  • How do you think our country is doing in these terms?
  • Do you think the church is successful at having a healthy relationship to its members or that it extracts too much?
  • Have you seen these dynamics at play in the workplace or elsewhere?

Discuss.