KAKISTOCRACY: Government By the Worst

THE OLD WORD IS A DESCRIPTIVE TERM WHOSE TIME HAS COME

At a recent San Francisco People’s March (Author photo)

(This is an exception to my policy of avoiding politics on this website, posted here just because this good Webster’s Dictionary word deserves our attention at the very least. Regularly my political observations are on Substack, weekly, @ The Optimistic Eye. C’mon over any time; it’s free.)

If anyone was worried about people being worn out after the National Day of Action that drew huge crowds all across the country on April 5, those apprehensions were put to rest the following week. We’re still working to prevent the mean-spirited and unfit people “running” the country from totally wrecking it. Hands Off!

Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez drew a crowd of 36,000 in Los Angeles on the 12th. Follow-up rallies brought out enthusiastic supporters of democracy in city after city, small towns and village squares over the weekend.

My personal favorite — possibly because I was there — was The People’s March / Fight Fascism for Democracy event in San Francisco April 12. Billed as a rally in support of “everyone under attack by the current government administration” the event featured representatives of faith communities, teachers, artists and an assortment of groups that have been targeted by Trump 2.0. Soft breezes drifted inland from the Bay, the sun shone on young progressives and gray-haired activists and the talks were a mixture of enthusiastic protest and be-good-to-yourself encouragement.

The signs, as protest signs go, outdid themselves.

I snapped a picture of one homemade proclamation carefully inked on cardboard (above) and held timidly aloft by a gentle participant. Be Kind, it urged. It’s going to take a lot of kindness to counteract the cruelty of policies that seem to get more stringent and oppressive by the day. Because the crowd was constantly moving and shifting I had hardly noticed the sign just a few feet from the kindness advocate.

KAKISTOCRACY it proclaimed. Who knew? In my undistinguished two years of college Greek and subsequent decades of political activism I don’t recall encountering the term. Its time has come! Government by the worst, the least qualified or most unscrupulous. Hello? Trump 2.0 has been identified.

Thank you, unidentified sign-creator.

If ever we have lived in a kakistocracy it is now. All talk about growing autocracy (true,) oligarchy (true) and fascism (scarily possible) aside, Trump 2.0 is the definition of a kakistocracy. From the multi-bankrupted businessman turned reality TV star turned puppet president to his cabinet choices of the excruciatingly unfit, not even Socrates could have come up with a better example of kakistocratic perfection.

Recently, for example, we saw Secretary of Education Linda McMahon blithely talking of young students getting A1 education; presumably she never heard about Artificial Intelligence. Then there was Health Secretary (God help us) Robert Kennedy, unaware that his department’s $11 billion “DEI” cuts actually had eliminated critical projects and key, highly qualified people. Well never mind, Mr. Kennedy’s going to unveil a shiny-object proof that vaccines cause autism, a pet project he’s still busy working on while Americans are dying of measles and whooping cough. 

Stupidities such as the above and cruelties such as mass deportations with no due process continue — showing how much damage a kakistocracy can do, especially when it’s headed by an aging, mentally challenged and supremely kakistocratic man.

All is not lost. We the people are getting some help from the courts. For example, just when ignorance (or disregard) of the constitutional right to a free press seemed to be vanishing, a judge blocked the White House’s AP ban. The ACLU, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Freedoms, the State Democracy Defenders Fund and a growing list of nonprofits and public figures are working with the courts — and in whatever other ways possible against the wrecking ball. They are all sustained by the support of ordinary people.

This is what living under and fighting against a kakistocracy looks like. At the very least, I think we should be calling it what it is. Meanwhile, since the Egotist in Chief delights in being first, we can award him this distinction:

Donald J. Trump, first American president to create a certified kakistocracy.