The word looked vaguely familiar but to be sure, I looked it up:
government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state.”the danger is that this will reduce us to kakistocracy”
- a state or society governed by its least suitable or competent citizens.plural noun: kakistocracies“the modern regime is at once a plutocracy and a kakistocracy”
That said, I invite you to read an opinion piece in today’s New York Times: “Trump Is Getting Weaker, and the Resistance Is Getting Stronger” by Michelle Goldberg. It’s encouraging, at least momentarily, for those of us opposed to autocracies, oligarchies, plutocracies, kleptocracies, and … kakistocracies (it even sounds crazy, doesn’t it?). I wonder if there’s a word meaning all of those things rolled into one? We need it for this administration.
Goldberg was born in 1975 and that may explain why she sounds more optimistic than I feel. Still, her words are encouraging, if only for today.
we sure do!
I keep trying to coin a new word, something like catastrophcracy. But kakistocracy is certainly appropriate.
I like yours too, and it fits
A nice new word to know, and it’s apt to a degree, though in the back of my mind I remember that Trump and his henchmen have been remarkably competent in certain areas (e.g. enriching themselves, and imprinting on our nation their anti-democratic, racist, elitist views). It will take years to restore balance. Those of course are not what we elect our leaders for. So I suggest they are not necessarily incompetent. They are malevolent.
Malevolently incompetent. Yes. Or incompetently malevolent.
Trump 2.0 has a few positives. It has invigorated NATO and the EU, spurring Europe’s investment in their own military defense. It has shown how vulnerable our system of representative democracy is, thus reviving interest in supporting it. Same for the system of Justice and due process. The body politic must participate, or it doesn’t work. Finally, it has proved the idiom that anybody can be elected president, no matter how absurd.
One might argue it was Putin’s actions that wakened a moribund NATO and EU. But even then they seemed to be sleeping until Trump started exercising his fickle ham-handed version of international diplomacy and statesmanship with Putin and Zelensky. Yes, this administration is good for, if nothing else, demonstrating how really awful things can be if citizens don’t pay attention and participate. Unfortunately, some still think we are on the right path. And if what we see as a catastrophic decline is what they see as the path to paradise, the America we’ve known may be gone forever.
Yes, I re-posted that article in my Bluesky account because it’s good. So of course you would find it too !! 🙂
Great minds … yada, yada.
You have a Bluesky account? Did I know that? (yeah, that’s something I’m asking more and more often 🙁
I enjoy Bluesky because it’s full of people of our age-group, Colorado – and of escapees from X. Give it a try, why doncha ? – I’d love to see you there !!
I’ve made brief attempts at both Bluesky and Substack. Didn’t get very far with either, although Bluesky seemed easier. Was hoping to cross post to both from WP but it seemed too time-consuming to figure out considering the time I spend here. I’m not about to abandon WP after all these years.
I tried to find you on Bluesky and failed. At the very least, please put a link on your WP page so your readers (including moi) will know where you’ve gone.
And of course you could just post it here.
HAHa
Quickly slipping by – I almost thought this was a silly horror Santa movie post.
Gotta love vocabulary and those who dig out the unusual but wonderful!
The word has been around since the 17th Century, but I’d never heard it until this year. Maybe because we’ve never needed it until this year. And it’s way worse than a silly horror Santa movie.