Trump's presidency is shaping up to be a kakistocracy: government by the worst possible people

By Stephen Wolf
Friday Nov 25, 2016 · 12:00 PM EST

Many of the words our language uses to describe forms of government come from Greek: democracy, autocracy, oligarchy, monarchy, and so on. There’s also another Greek term that you might not have encountered before called kakistocracy, or rule by the worst possible people. Trump has only been the president-elect a mere two weeks, but he has already sparked outcry over promising key appointments to white nationalists, unqualified sycophants, and those with troubling ties to Vladimir Putin’s Russia. With congressional Republican leaders acquiescing to Trump’s nominees, America is poised to have a government run by the worst sorts imaginable.

Trump’s very first appointment was Steve Bannon as his chief political strategist. Before joining Trump’s campaign, Bannon ran the alt-right hate site Breitbart, which spreads far-right xenophobia while masquerading as news. He is an anti-Semite and white supremacist, and Bannon has boasted of how he wants to create an international alliance with far-right parties across the world. Neo-Nazis and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke praised Bannon’s selection. He has never served in government before, but will now be the chief adviser to one of the most powerful men in the world, proving Trump’s racism wasn’t just campaign talk.

If picking a quasi-fascist for chief adviser weren't bad enough, Trump announced he would nominate Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general. In 1986, a Republican-controlled Senate refused to confirm him to a federal judgeship over his racism. The senator is an avowed opponent of recent criminal justice reform efforts. Sessions is also an outspoken critic of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, and as a U.S. attorney he prosecuted black voters for attempting to exercise their right to vote. If he runs the Justice Department, he will turn it from the chief enforcer of civil and voting rights laws into the instrument of their demise, helping to usher us into a 21st Century era of Jim Crow.

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http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/25/1602547/-Trump-s-presidency-is-shaping-up-to-be-a-kakistocracy-government-by-the-worst-possible-people