From Democracy to Kakistocracy

 

By David K. Shipler 

Kakistocracy, n: government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state 

[Note: Bowing to the influence of The Shipler Report, Gaetz withdrew only hours after this was posted.]

            When President Richard Nixon nominated Judge G. Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court in 1970, his lack of intellectual heft was defended by Republican Senator Roman Hruska of Nebraska, who famously declared: “Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they, and a little chance? We can’t have all Brandeises, Frankfurters, and Cardozos.”

            The Senate rejected Carswell, with 13 Republicans joining Democrats in voting no.

            Ah, for the good old days. This time around, it is not just mediocrity that is ascending to power but wild incompetence seasoned with wackiness. From Donald Trump on down, the federal government is about to be converted into a cesspool of financial and moral corruption, and into a juggernaut of fact-free autocratic decrees, political arrests, and military roundups. At least that’s Trump’s goal, which his key nominees are poised to pursue.

If Hruska were still with us, he would have to update his argument by noting that the country’s sexual assailants also deserve “a little representation.” Since most voters just elected a court-proven sexual assailant president, he would surely find sympathy in the supine Senate. And remember, Republicans in years past confirmed Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court despite credible accusations, respectively, of sexual harassment and assault. Today, Trump seems partial to men who do that kind of thing, since the accused (but not proven) assailants he’s picked for his Cabinet include Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at Health and Human Services.  

Their slimy behavior with women is the finishing coat on layers of obnoxious absurdities that threaten the country’s well-being. Under the guise of federal reform and downsizing, they and their yet-to-be chosen lieutenants in various agencies are likely to damage Americans’ health, undermine national security, normalize suspicions of democracy, deepen poverty, stifle news coverage, and chill dissent. Their designs would further fuel anti-government antagonism by undermining the best things government does, making it hostile to people’s needs and unworthy of the people’s regard.

 Institutions, government or private, need periodic reform, fresh eyes to spot deficiencies, and sometimes tough measures to improve their functions. There are many ways to tame a bureaucracy, to trim waste and hone it for efficiency, and even to reorient its priorities. Some in business who take over failing companies wield a ruthless ax, shedding workers as if they were detritus gumming up the works. Some dispose deftly of unprofitable entities. Some use a scalpel on existing structures and make adjustments. But the goal in most such projects is to save the company, not to destroy it.

In “Trump World,” the current euphemism for Dante’s third circle of hell, a very different objective has taken shape. It contains a severe contradiction that might be summed up this way: destroy parts of the government doing things you don’t like and expand its reach into things you like, particularly punishing the poor and prosecuting your critics.

There is little about the Trumpists’ agenda that can be called “conservative” in its traditional meaning, other than a push to deregulate the private sector and to slash benefits for Americans struggling low in the socio-economic hierarchy. That’s in keeping with conservative Republican values: Enrich yourselves and impoverish the vulnerable.

Otherwise, the Trump agenda envisions government intrusion into in areas once thought immune from the long arm of the state: scaring broadcasters and online companies into denying you information, sending the military into your workplaces and neighborhoods to check your citizenship and immigration status, requiring doctors to ask women their reasons for seeking abortions, monitoring courses taught by your local schools with the threat of defunding, and so on. His appointees are lined up to speed draconian changes in America.

Can it happen? The saving grace of Trump’s first term was his ignorance and lack of curiosity about the mechanisms of governing. He alienated the three most important institutions that any wannabe autocrat would require: the police apparatus in the form of the FBI, the intelligence-gathering establishment, and the military. Trump has learned, though, and he is recruiting collaborators—some of the vilest people in America—to align these powers to support his authoritarian aspirations.

With a clever sleight of hand, Trump projects his own nefarious defects onto his opponents—e.g., the Democrats threaten democracy, the Democrats weaponize the Justice Department. His propaganda deflected many voters’ gaze. When he says he wants to turn the Justice Department against his political enemies and the press, and nominates Gaetz to do it, he’s finally telling the truth. It’s wise to believe what he says.

Gaetz has such a record of nutty confrontation that some of his Republican colleagues in the House are delighted that he resigned to curtail his ethics investigation. So there’s little doubt that he, along with a Trumpist FBI director, would aim the immense powers of federal investigators and prosecutors squarely at Trump’s Democratic critics, including California Senator Adam Schiff. News reporters are likely to be targeted if they cover Trump negatively. Even if four Republicans are sensible enough to reject Gaetz, which seems possible, Trump can be counted on to replace him with a nominee tuned to his revenge portfolio, even if less flamboyantly.

Hegseth also poses acute dangers. He could be a gateway into enhancing the white supremacist presence in the armed forces. His tattoo resembling one used by extreme right-wing militia got him taken off the national guard detail guarding the Capitol on January 6, and his inclination toward Christian nationalism has a whiff of ethnocentrist religiosity. White nationalism is already present in the ranks to an extent, but having a Defense Secretary tolerant of extreme racism, and pledging to purge senior officers, sets the stage for a dramatic remaking of a military that has been staunchly apolitical. And using active duty forces to impose internal order by rounding up undocumented immigrants or putting down demonstrations would cross a line that would not be easily reestablished.   

Kennedy, with his crackpot conspiracy theories about various health issues, would damage medical research for a generation, setting the United States back behind most of the industrial world. “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people,” he said in July 2023. “The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.” This is the man Trump wants running federal health programs. Yet Kennedy strikes a chord with the public in channeling their suspicion of authority and expertise, and in railing against preservatives in food, to take just one example.

That is a tactic often used by people who peddle misinformation, according to Dr. Leana Wen, who writes a column for The Washington Post. “It’s not that all they say are lies. If that’s the case, no one’s going to listen to them. But instead, you can listen to someone like this, you can nod your head and say, yes, that’s right, that’s right, that’s right, and then you end up going along with the other things that are then said that are actually not right.”

Kennedy and most other nominees look attractive to the rank and file voters who hate the federal government and think it needs to be broken. Trump has traded cleverly on this antipathy and sense of alienation and powerlessness, and his naming of non-experts appeals to nihilist impulses in the broad electorate.

Ironically, though, appointing people outside their areas of expertise might impede Trump’s ability to refashion the federal bureaucracy. Because “experts” are part of the “elite” that have become the “enemy” in the faux internal war exploited by Trump, he is not installing anybody who knows much about the agencies he wants them to run. How effective their demolition will be is a question. Nevertheless, their less visible incoming deputy secretaries, assistant secretaries, and department heads, who might be equally bizarre, might know better how to get the job done. The press—even the remaining free and fair press—will not have sufficient resources to cover those agencies at the grassroots level where they’ll need to be monitored.

The term kakistocracy should now enter our everyday language. It comes from two Greek words meaning “worst” and “rule,” that is, a society ruled by its worst people. Trump is obviously one of the worst, and many of those he is elevating to positions of authority are among the worst of America. How many of us, in our own lives, have ever met anyone like Trump or the others? Certainly very few. It’s a good bet that very few of his own voters have, either.

So it's time to ask why the worst people in this society are rising to govern us, why voters are allowing the United States of America to become a kakistocracy.