PSA

This public service, educational moment is brought to you by the Letter K.

Are you in despair of the incoming administration?

Do you wonder what happened to the form of democratic government

you were forced to study 

all those years ago 

in civics class?

Do you long for two party system we USED to have - 

with all its flaws -

where people of differing opinions actually worked together

for the common good?

Yeah, me too!

But it's helped -

a little bit -

to learn that there's actually a term for the form of government that's coming -

and it's been around since 1829, 

coined by English author, Thomas Peacock,

and used in the US in 1876

when American poet, James Russell Lowell used it in a letter.

"What fills me with doubt and dismay is the degradation of the moral tone. 

Is it or is it not a result of Democracy? 

Is ours a 'government of the people by the people for the people,' 

or a Kakistocracy rather, for the benefit of knaves at the cost of fools?"

Kakistocracy:

government by the worst, least qualified or most unscrupulous persons;

a form of government in which the worst persons are in power. 

I'm sorry to say I missed the earlier reference

but in February 2016, 

David Clay Johnson apparently warned we were moving toward a kakistocracy,

"America is moving away from the high ideals of President Kennedy's inaugural address - 

'Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country'.

Instead we see politicians who say they love America but hate the American government."

Kakistocracy -

spell check get used to seeing this word; 

stop telling me there's no such thing.

We're living in it!

We're going to be using this term ALOT in the years to come.