Tag: kakistocracy

American Kakistocracy on steroids

stunningly unqualified

Back in 2017, Norm Ornstein wrote about the American Kakistocracy for The Atlantic. “There’s a case to be made that the United States is governed by the least scrupulous of its citizens.” And now we are an American Kakistocracy on steroids.
2017: “Kakistocracy is a term that was first used in the 17th century; derived from a Greek word, it means, literally, government by the worst and most unscrupulous people among us. More broadly, it can mean the most inept and cringeworthy kind of government. The term fell into disuse over the past century or more, and most highly informed people have never heard it before (but to kids familiar with the word “kaka” it might resonate).”

“As I wrote my new book with E.J. Dionne and Tom Mann, One Nation Under Trump, I kept returning to the term. Kakistocracy is back, and we are experiencing it firsthand in America. The unscrupulous element has come into sharp focus in recent weeks as a string of Trump Cabinet members and White House staffers have been caught spending staggering sums of taxpayer dollars to charter jets, at times to go small distances where cheap commercial transportation was readily available, at times to conveniently visit home areas or have lunch with family members.”

I use the term “on steroids” intentionally. This is a term that djt used to describe the embarrassing failed North Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson. He was “like Martin Luther King on steroids.” This is an insult to both Martin Luther King and steroids.

What’s happening now, and it’s changing so rapidly that it’s difficult to encapsulate, is that any sense of guardrails or normalcy is out the window. As I used to say too often, though it’s still accurate, The trouble with normal is it always gets worse.

Another appropriate word for right now is ‘recrudescence’ (17th century): “the return of something terrible after a time of reprieve.”

Elon

Undoubtedly, you’ve heard how the Dems ran too far to the left or too far to the center or were too “woke,” or whatever. What I think is mostly true is that the Republicans were better able to define the Democrats than the Dems.

“Muslims in Michigan began seeing pro-Israel ads this fall praising Vice President Kamala Harris for marrying a Jewish man and backing the Jewish state. Jews in Pennsylvania, meanwhile, saw ads from the same group with the opposite message: Harris wanted to stop U.S. arms shipments to Israel.

“Another group promoted ‘Kamala’s bold progressive agenda’ to conservative-leaning Donald Trump voters, while a third filled the phones of young liberals with videos about how Harris had abandoned the progressive dream. Black voters in North Carolina were told Democrats wanted to take away their menthol cigarettes, while working-class White men in the Midwest were warned that Harris would support quotas for minorities and deny them Zyn nicotine pouches.

“What voters had no way of knowing at the time was that all of the ads were part of a single $45 million effort created by political advisers to Tesla founder Elon Musk.”

It doesn’t feel like just another election. The Hollywood Reporter, of all things, notes: “The results came as a shock to large swaths of the nation who had hoped that the election of… Harris would protect the United States from the kind of fascism sweeping across the world. But for some — communities of color and queer and trans people, for example— Trump’s re-election only reaffirmed nightmares about a country whose major civil rights gains are young when compared to its oppressive history.”

Cabinet

It appears there are two types of his Cabinet appointments: the totally unqualified and the merely unfortunate.

47 selected, for his Attorney General, a person who Ben Domenech, a “big noise in conservative circles [who is] a co-founder of The RedState group blog and The Federalist,” despises. The headline of his article, posted to Substack, left no doubt as to the tenor of the piece: “Matt Gaetz is a Vile Sex Pest, and Any Senator Who Votes For Him Owns That.” His selection triggers audible gasps from some Republicans.

Tom Homan

Pete Hegseth is a Fox News TV host who is way out of his league to run an operation as vast as the Defense Department. He had a role in djt’s controversial pardons of men accused of war crimes. He also is waging a war on “woke.”

Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican from New York, was picked as an ambassador to the United Nations but not because of her international expertise.

As governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem has no background in Homeland Security.
The Atlantic called Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic member of Congress from Hawaii, “stunningly unqualified for almost any Cabinet post (as are some of Trump’s other picks), but especially for ODNI. She has no qualifications as an intelligence professional—literally none….  She has no significant experience directing or managing much of anything.”
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s message on vaccines is a medical crisis waiting to happen. And then he says stuff even nuttier.
(Off-topic, but LinkedIn wanted to know if I wanted to follow Vivek Ramaswamy, the “efficiency guy with Musk. “STAND for truth.” No, thank you. )
Here are observations by Common Dreams.
Day 1
Worse than that, Orange is Plotting To Skip The Senate Confirmation Process. He was serious when he said he’d be dictator only on Day 1. This involves the Senate allowing “him to make recess appointments that would skip the otherwise Constitutionally mandated Senate confirmation process.” Reportedly, he “is coordinating with House Speaker Johnson to allow [djt] to force Congress to adjourn under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution so that he can freely make the recess appointments he wants.” 
The Senate could block this if it takes its role of ‘advise and consent’ seriously—otherwise, the extremely tenuous Senate integrity is shot altogether.

Meanwhile, per Red State: “Several conservative groups are currently in a campaign to identify federal employees who are partisan or possibly resistant to enacting Trump’s agenda, according to a CNN report. These groups include the Heritage Foundation Oversight Project and the American Accountability Foundation.

“The organizations have flooded federal agencies with tens of thousands of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests demanding access to emails, personnel records, and other communications between government employees. The effort is part of a comprehensive strategy to lay the groundwork for mass firings of civil servants under Trump’s Schedule F executive order issued in 2020, which was later revoked under President Joe Biden.” I wrote about Schedule F here. 

So, am I optimistic? Not really. But one needs to fight the fight anyway. I’m just not sure what that looks like yet.

Why I’ll never vote for the Donnybrook

A kakistocracy.

Trump endorsementThere is a known problem with noting my disdain for Donald J. Trump every year. It will convince no one, I realize. Those who love the Donnybrook – which I find inexplicable – will still love him. Those who despise him will continue to so.

For the record, I write about it anyway. Every year he’s been President, on his birthday I write. It’s also Flag Day, of course, so it’s likewise a reflection of how the country is doing.

In this regime, the Justice Department doles out mercy and second chances to the undeserving, the rich, and the powerful, and his cronies. But this is seldom afforded to others. A study shows that the Department of Justice prosecutions of white-collar criminals is at an all-time low.

The tax law, passed in late 2017, provided more breaks to the wealthiest Americans while doing little or nothing for everyone else.

The turnover rate in his regime has been massive. The absence of expertise in top government jobs is especially dangerous during emergencies. Also, “when positions are filled they have not necessarily gone to the strongest candidates.”

I’ve long wondered whether this is a flaw or a feature in the process. Picking a known enemy of education to head education, of the environment to lead EPA, et al. was no accident. And by keeping the administrative plates always spinning, the chance for a Cabinet to toss him out using the 25th Amendment becomes less likely.

If he had released his taxes, perhaps there would be fewer questions about him enriching himself. Most of his controversies are vehicles for self-justification, self-preservation, and self-enrichment.

His actions have damaged U.S. credibility and influence abroad. “America first” has hurt America, except with fellow authoritarian leaders.

Corona catastrophe

But the single biggest disaster of his regime has been his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unsurprisingly, his response is like what he does a lot in other areas. He refuses to take responsibility for the surge of cases in March or people ingesting disinfectant. Even when he claims absolute authority, he dodges any culpability.

He had shut down the White House pandemic office back in 2018. And his team had been briefed before his inauguration about the threat posed by pandemics. Intelligence warnings in January and February from U.S. intelligence agencies were ignored. After the disease hit, the regime waited 2 months before bolstering medical supplies. This forced states and other entities to bid against each other to obtain them.

He picked the four men responsible For America’s COVID-19 test disaster. Among them, Mike Pence, a known science denier. The standard lie about the availability of testing became untenable.

But he always spread lies and disinformation. Early in the crisis, he said that the coronavirus would simply vanish. “It’s going to disappear. One day it’s like a miracle—it will disappear.”

Exhausting

There are so many more examples of incompetence and/or greed, I have literally lost track. The purge of Inspectors General should be a national scandal. It’s always about him, as he threatens the press and his other so-called enemies.

The result of all of this is that the man is making us worse people. “He is draining the last reserves of decency among us at a time when we need it most.” From today’s Boston Globe: The nationalist president and the white supremacist. “In June 2015, Donald Trump and Dylann Roof ushered in a new era of racist violence and white resentment.”

In other words, Donald Trump Is the “Worst President Ever.” He has surpassed James Buchanan. And that is a low bar indeed.

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