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.
Trump has also pledged to put truly awful people on the Supreme Court, and with Senate Republicans using unprecedented obstruction to prevent President Obama from filling the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat, Trump will get at least one appointment. Liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer are 83 and 78 years old respectively, while conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy, a crucial swing vote, is 80. If Trump replaces any of those three, it could tip the balance of the court to a majority of ultra-conservatives for the first time since the Great Depression. Civil rights, voting rights, women’s right to choose, the New Deal social safety net programs, and more could soon be on the chopping block.
The president-elect also incurred sharp condemnation when he named Michael Flynn as his national security adviser, a retired lieutenant general who was forced out of the Defense Department in 2014. Flynn is an outspoken Islamophobe who believes we are at war with Islam. He has also trafficked in anti-Semitic social media messages. Most troublingly, Flynn has strong ties to Vladimir Putin’s Russia and has frequently appeared on Russia Today, the government-funded propaganda network. His and Trump’s coziness with Russia pose a severe threat to both America’s national security and that of European democracies.
Trump has also made it clear his children will serve in major roles in his administration. By leaving them in charge of his business, Trump has already started using the presidency to unethically enrich himself and his family to the tune of billions. He also appears poised to give radical Republicans like House Speaker Paul Ryan free reign to gut the social safety net, while the party will push through corporate welfare policies allowing wealthy interests to raid and pillage the taxpayers.
This doesn’t even scratch the surface of how horrific Trump’s administrative personnel could be, since Trump still has countless more positions to fill with numerous terrible options to choose from, and he hasn’t even taken his first official actions as president. We are truly beginning to see a government of the worst people take shape, or in other words, a kakistocracy.