'Government by the worst': why people are calling Trump's new sidekicks a 'kakistocracy'
Matt Gaetz chosen to run the justice department. Fox hosts in charge of the Pentagon and transportation. Elon Musk as head of layoffs. And Robert F Kennedy Jr and Dr Oz overseeing the nation’s health.
Some have likened Donald Trump’s administrative picks to a clown car; others are calling our incoming leadership a kakistocracy, or “government by the worst people”, as Merriam-Webster puts it.
The word has been trending online, with a burst in search traffic in recent weeks and a new dedicated subreddit. It’s not the first time Trump has (accidentally) made the term famous; many discovered it in his first term. But even after Gaetz’s departure, the kakistocracy of 2016 looks like Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood compared with the president-elect’s new batch of sidekicks.
It’s not the first time a president has popularized the term. Trump would be horrified to know he shares this distinction with several of America’s least-discussed presidents, including Rutherford B Hayes, James Garfield and Chester A Arthur. This trio – somehow forgettable despite the fact that the middle one was assassinated – led the US from the late 1870s to the early 1880s, a period following Reconstruction that saw the expansion of Jim Crow laws and segregation, as well as another election in which the parties clashed over the results. That span saw a surge in the use of the word, as Kelly Wright, assistant professor of language sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, points out based on Oxford English Dictionary data. “Hayes’ term was absolutely being described as a kakistocracy,” she says. (1880 was also a general election year in the UK, another country known for its contributions to the English language. That year, William Gladstone became prime minister for the second time; perhaps his opponents were among those giving the word a boost.)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/government-worst-why-people-calling-150002911.html