Perhaps it is not surprising that Donald Trump has a background in real estate development; at least he knows something about the importance of estates. Dealing in real estate in New York is necessarily going to put one within the domain of interests of organized crime and so it should not come as a surprise that Trump loves to cosplay as a godfather. His success also proves that the dividing line between politics and organized crime is – at best – very blurred. Many activities of organized crime are perfectly legal whereas quite a few activities of “big politics” are undoubtedly illegal. The fact that within the four years after the election victory of Joe Biden, Trump has managed to stave off 91 indictments without going to prison and managed to get himself re-elected – despite being indicted for his role in the attempted coup on January 6, 2021 as well as for stealing classified information and posing a threat to national security – proves this. Any ordinary person would have been convicted and sentenced for life in prison for violating the Official Secrets Act within the blink of an eye.
The relationship between politics and organized crime is not some kind of contingent, elective affinity. It is rooted in a systemic logic that we can also find in, for example, Rational Choice Theory. The idea is extremely simple: in making decisions, people tend to opt for the one that gives them the maximum positive difference between benefits and costs. It is thus perfectly rational to steal something that you desire or need rather than pay for it, except for the fact that being caught stealing will incur sanctions that would probably offset the payoff to such an extent, that it becomes unattractive. But what if you are able to ensure that you do not get caught? Or, as it has proven to be in the case of Trump, even if you get caught, you can still avoid (most of) the sanctions?
The job of politicians is to make laws and to govern. It is thus logical, that they are able to make laws and forms of administration from which they could benefit personally. It is also logical that those who are very rich, can afford to pay politicians to make laws from which they are likely to benefit, and to fund politicians to help them win elections, and to influence those who appoint judges and – if necessary – bribe those judges as well. Fiscal law is one specific area where the rich have been able to influence legislation, for example, to help them secure money in off shore accounts to avoid paying taxes. It should not come as a surprise that politicians also use tax loopholes that they have voted for, for their personal benefit.
The proper word for this kind of establishment is kleptocracy – rule by thieves. In kleptocratic systems, politicians become rich. Trump himself was quite poor before he became president, but he has been able to use his office to increase his private wealth. In the USA, this is completely legal and both main political parties have ensured that what we would normally recognize as corruption, is simply “how the system works”. It is not surprising that the likes of Putin, Netanyahu, Orban, Blair, Bush, Clinton, Obama etc have been able to amass great wealth while being in office. It is a bit more surprising, that Marine Le Pen was recently convicted. Her problem is perhaps, that she should have waited until she held office.
It is not peddling conspiracy theories to argue that politics and corruption are very intimate bedfellows, even in establishments that have increased their surveillance of the financial affairs of lawmakers and public office holders. The saying “power corrupts” does not come from nowhere. In a cynical way – and Rational Choice Theory is completely cynical – it makes perfect sense for politicians to be so easily corrupted. It happens at all levels of government, from municipals to international governing bodies (such as the EU). Hence I would like to posit that all democracies and all autocracies – even those that were instituted with the best of intentions – will become corrupted and turn into kleptocracies.
However, just as there is a good reason to take the phrase “power corrupts” seriously, there is also a very good reason for the phrase: “shit always floats to the top”. When we consider the likes of Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Keir Starmer, Elon Musk, Boris Johnson or Javier Milei, we cannot satisfy ourselves with merely calling these men corrupt. They are much, much worse than that. They lack honour, courage, dignity, a broader intelligence and critical self reflection. They are spineless, stupid and weak and this makes them anxious and afraid, which they compensate with a performativity of being tough leaders. They are in every sense of the word the embodiment of excrement in human form. They are part of a generation of politicians that have sunk kleptocracy into an even lower form: kakistocracy (rule by the worst). Kakos refers to something that is bad but also refers to cowardice; i.e. something that is inherently weak. This kind of abasement of politics that kakistocracy refers to, manifests itself in complete ineptitude, an inability to act with honour and dignity and thereby the continued need to be flushed away when things become too smelly.
Trump – being the greatest at everything according to himself – may actually be right in this respect. He probably is the greatest piece of excrement among the kakistocrats of today. The ineptitude of his administration, which was so obvious during the first four years of his kakistocratic regime, has only been amplified during the start of his second reign. This time, however, he is not merely wrecking the US economy and judicial system, he is wrecking the entire world. Surrounded by sycophants, parasites and maggots, there are no intelligent checks and balances, only echoes of the kakistocrat-in-chief. It is not for nothing that most people who know him tell us that Trump is indeed full of shit.
Referring both to a lack of quality and a lack of substance, kakos completely defies every substantive theory of evolution. Kakos points towards entropy, the excess of processes: waste, loss, error. At first sight, kakos cannot be recycled; kakos cannot be reintegrated, rehabilitated, reunited. However, risking the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, if we approach kakos scatologically, there is still a slight ray of hope: it can be used as fertilizer, provided it can be detoxified.
De detoxification of kakistocracy is of course not an easy task, because it requires intensive anamnesis of what which kakistocracy has been feeding on: the extractions and abstractions of imperial, patriarchal capitalism and it practices of accumulating wealth, power and admiration. As the time of this blog, thousands of citizens of the USA take time off work to attend rallies where Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez expose the USA as an oligarchy whereas millions have taken to the streets to protest against the dismantling of that, which has been left of the US-American common good (which is already very little) under the banner of Hands-Off. The very conception of Hands-Off as the protest slogan, however, also reveals that the protest movement still assumes that the USA are a kleptocracy, suggesting that the main issue is theft. In a kakistocrcay, however, the main issue is defilement or corruption. It is no longer just the self-enrichment of the billionaire class, but the sadistic jouissance of completely destroying the common good, very similar to that which motivates cartoon villains. It must be assumed, that kakistocrats actually take pleasure in being the subject of public condemnation.
Disaffected Sociology 
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