An American Kakistocracy: Keefe

Different forms of government have different names, including monarchy (rule by a monarch or royal family), aristocracy (rule by a privileged class), theocracy (rule by religious leaders), oligarchy (rule by a few) and democracy (rule by the people, either directly or through elected representatives).

And then there is kakistocracy – rule by the worst, least qualified, most unprincipled, unscrupulous citizens. (Look it up.) Under Donald Trump, the United States has become a kakistocracy.

There could be no more striking illustration of this than the conduct of senior federal officials in response to the recent killings of two Minnesota citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, by masked ICE gunmen.

Following the killings, senior Trump administration officials including Vice President JD Vance, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Chief Kristi Noem, White House aid Stephen Miller, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino, all baldly lied to the American people, claiming that the victims were the aggressors, even though videos, witness statements and other evidence clearly refute such lies. Then, after lying about the ICE shootings themselves, these same federal officials couldn’t resist slandering the victims.

JD Vance, Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller called them “domestic terrorists”, with Vice President Vance claiming that Renee Good’s actions – turning her steering wheel and attempting to drive away at three miles per hour – was “classic terrorism.” Mr. Miller further claimed that Alex Pretti was a “would-be-assassin” who “tried to murder federal agents”. Border Patrol commander Bovino similarly accused Pretti of trying to “massacre law enforcement.” There is no evidence for such claims; they are simply lies, and the people who uttered them are liars.

Trump himself called Alex Pretti a “paid agitator” and “possible insurrectionist” – lies again, based on zero evidence – and said he felt a little worse about Renee Good’s death because her family were “big Trump people”. It’s always about his twisted ego, never about the country, or its citizens. As for U.S. citizens, if they are of Somali descent Trump calls them “garbage”. Undocumented immigrants? They are “animals.” Or, as Kristi Noem puts it, “dirt bags”.

When immigrants are “garbage”, “animals”, and “dirt bags,” when peaceful protestors are “terrorists” and “insurrectionists”, when masked federal agents can kill with impunity, when state law enforcement is prohibited from investigating the killings, then murder – and its cover up – is being sanctioned by the federal government.

This total disregard for human life and the rule of law should be chilling to all Americans.

And of course, these same MAGA politicians all supported President Trump’s pardons of nearly 1600 actual domestic terrorists, already convicted or awaiting trial or sentencing for violently attacking the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. More than 600 of these rioters were convicted of or pled guilty to assault, or obstructing police officers, and 170 of using a deadly weapon.

It is Mr. Trump himself who most perfectly embodies a lawless kakistocracy – the elevation of the worst, least qualified, most unprincipled and unscrupulous people to the highest offices in the land. Recently he posted a meme of Barack and Michelle Obama as jungle apes and questioned how any person of faith could vote for a Democrat. He is simply the most divisive, racist, cruel ignoramus ever to defile the presidency. But beyond his moral and temperamental unfitness, we now have before us the fact that Mr. Trump is seemingly in rapid mental decline as well.

His middle-of-the-night postings have grown increasingly unhinged in recent months. His incoherent rambling, repetition and confusion (e.g., referring to Greenland as Iceland throughout his recent Davos speech) is becoming the stuff of legend. Dozing off during meetings. Whining about not winning the Nobel Peace Prize – then accepting it as a gift from the actual winner! Ranting about windmills during a speech in the UK, claiming they drive whales “loco” and “kill the birds” (domestic cats kill far more birds). Snarling, “shut up, piggy” to a female reporter. Claiming that his uncle, a professor at MIT, taught the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, and that Trump had a conversation with his uncle about it, when in fact his uncle died in 1985, the Unabomber wasn’t identified until 1996, and never attended MIT. (Can you imagine the outcry had Joe Biden said this?)

When a president is so manifestly unfit for office, there are only two remedies available: impeachment and the 25th amendment. One depends on Congress, the other on a majority of Cabinet members. Neither remedy was designed with moral cowards and sycophants in mind, however, and that is what we have today in the Republican-controlled Congress and the Trump Cabinet.

Which leaves it to the people – to elections. If Democrats capture a majority in Congress in this year’s elections, then the worst excesses of the Trump kakistocracy can be stopped, and impeachment can proceed.

If elections are held, that is. The gravest threat to our democracy at this moment is that our rogue president and his lawless kakistocracy will interfere with, rig or perhaps even cancel, on some pretext, this year’s midterm elections. Trump is already making noises in this regard, and anyone who would put it past this crowd at this point is hopelessly naïve. It should be our greatest fear, and what we most need to prepare for.

Much of the evil in the world, throughout history, has been set in motion by the stupidity and amorality of the worst, least qualified, most unprincipled, unscrupulous people. When they are elevated to the highest offices of government, their capacity for mendacity and heinousness is of course greatly exaggerated. A kakistocracy comprised of such people is perhaps the worst form of government. It is, I’m afraid, what we have in Washington today, and what we must rid ourselves of.

Joe Keefe is a former chair of the NH Democratic Party who now lives in Maine.