Recovering academic, repentant Trump voter, and widely discussed public intellectual Richard Hanania looks at what happens when the most unethical and least competent people are given power and control the levers of government.
Most elections are between conservatives and liberals, and most voters assume they are choosing between who will govern more effectively. But when it becomes populists versus institutionalists, there arises the danger of our political system elevating the least honest, reliable, and knowledgeable people.
Putting the Trump administration's ignorant flailing into a global and historical perspective, Kakistocracy shows democracies increasingly suffer from a tangle of inefficiency, interest-group domination, and incompetence. If unchecked, Richard Hanania argues, this will lead to systemic dysfunction in areas critical to public life, including housing, energy, health, disaster response, economics, and basic governance. He warns that this trajectory carries the potential for semi-authoritarianism, corruption, and societal stagnation.
Kakistocracy confronts the failures of the Trump-era GOP, revealing the ways scams, institutional erosion, and corruption are inevitable. It also shows why similar movements are on the rise around the world, and discusses the academic literature on how we know that populism usually ends in disaster. For those in either party willing to face hard truths and challenge the narratives we've grown too comfortable with, this is where the reckoning begins.
Kakistocracy is Greek for “rule by the worst people.”
Why does turning away from elite rule and institutions so often lead to corruption, instability, illiberalism, and economic decline? In Kakistocracy, Richard Hanania dissects the dominant political story of our era: the global rise of populism. The United States is one among many nations shifting from a political spectrum of conservatives versus liberals to populists versus institutionalists, opening the door for the least honest and competent figures to take power—and often be rewarded for failure.
Hanania is a legal scholar and political scientist by training, contributor to Project 2025, and repentant Trump voter. He argues that modern democracies suffer from inefficiency, special-interest domination, and incompetence. Left unchecked, he warns, these trends create dysfunction in housing, energy, health, and the economy, paving the way for corruption and creeping authoritarianism.
Despite this, populist movements, fueled by prejudice and misinformation, rarely solve these problems and instead elevate leaders who are profoundly unqualified to govern. The result is a kakistocracy, where corruption and ineptitude become routine. Hanania’s exploration spans the globe, examining the leadership of figures including Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, and Viktor Orbán, as well as events in countries such as Sri Lanka, Romania, South Korea, and Argentina. He discusses the ways in which the rise of populism is related to resurgent authoritarianism and why alliances between populists in the West and authoritarians abroad are based in shared values and interests.
Drawing on political science, economics, and sociology, Kakistocracy confronts the failures of the Trump-era GOP, revealing how scams, institutional erosion, and corruption are inevitable in a party that embraces populism. It also shows why similar movements are on the rise around the world and investigates what elites can do to respond to populism’s more rational critiques of mainstream institutions while still fighting back against it.
