The word du jour is kakistocracy. From the Greek, the opposite of aristocracy, it means rule by the worst.
Certainly applicable to Trump’s appointees like Gaetz, Kennedy, now the charlatan grifter Dr. Oz to run Medicare. And Linda McMahon — of professional wrestling — to destroy the Education Department. And Fox News babbler Hegseth as defense secretary. We’re learning what a sleazebag blowhard he is. Wants to purge our military of “woke” types. And women.
I’d venture a new coinage (also rooted in Greek) — kolosocracy — rule by assholes.
Meantime, we’re all supposed to now cheerily embrace Trump voters as our good fellow citizens (and not reflect back their hatreds). Columnist David Brooks exemplifies a certain newfound intellectual humility in the face of the shocking election result. He now sees the Democratic party as having been all about group identities, thus for instance expecting Hispanics to recoil at Trump’s nastiness toward Mexicans, etc. Whereas people in such ethnic groups have minds of their own and non-tribal concerns. With Trump’s Republican party, by speaking to those concerns, creating a broad new coalition that cuts across traditional group identities. Maybe a healthy political and societal development. (The holdouts being arrogant college-educated whites.)
So the real story of this election is not a political realignment, but a collapse of civic culture. Turning our backs on decency, dignity, integrity, responsibility, honor, truth, and reality. History will mark this as where America went off the rails.
But that analysis ignores something more fundmental: the kakistocracy/kolosocracy aspect. People voting their true interests is fine. But not voting like assholes, for knaves who will not, in the big picture, serve their interests. Trump’s pandering to them is just a giant con.
Image courtesy of Trump campaign
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As the campaign climaxed, Trump seemed to do everything possible to lose. Ever more ugly, nasty, dark. Not to mention flagrantly dishonest. Surely, I believed, American voters must finally gag at this. How wrong I was. This is not the country I’d thought. The worse Trump became, the more people went for him.
Democrats are faulted for trying to make democracy an issue. It didn’t work. And indeed, it’s not just what Trump might do; we’ll still have another election in 2028. The true problem lies with voters themselves, flocking to so wicked a candidate. Either stupidly blind to it, or actually perversely attracted to it. A mentality inimical to democracy, making a mockery of it.
Welcome to our kolosocracy.
