Trump 2.0 can be described as a kakistocracy – a state or society governed by its least suitable or competent citizens.

Let’s process that.

Donald Trump and the Republican Party have made dismantling Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives a core part of their political platform, claiming these programs undermine merit and lower standards. Yet, when it comes to their own appointments, qualifications and competence take a backseat to blind loyalty and political convenience. WTF?

The contradiction couldn’t be clearer: while they rail against DEI as a threat to excellence, they openly embrace mediocrity when it serves their own interests.

Trump’s first term was a case study in this hypocrisy. He repeatedly filled key government positions with individuals who had no business being there. Betsy DeVos, a billionaire donor with no experience in public education, was put in charge of the Department of Education. Rick Perry, who once pledged to eliminate the Department of Energy, was placed in charge of it—only to later admit he didn’t fully understand its function. Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon with no background in housing policy, was appointed to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The problem wasn’t just incompetence—it was an intentional disregard for expertise in favor of ideological alignment. Trump sought appointees who would be loyal to him personally, rather than those who had the knowledge and skills to effectively lead their respective departments. This trend continued in his judicial appointments, where qualifications took a backseat to political allegiance, resulting in the nomination of judges deemed unqualified by the American Bar Association.

Now, for Trump 2.0, his potential cabinet picks reveal the same troubling pattern:

• Marco Rubio, Secretary of State – A career politician with no foreign policy leadership experience. Lacks deep diplomatic experience; more of a legislator than a negotiator.
• Kash Patel, F.B.I. Director – Has never served in a senior law enforcement position or led a large investigative agency.  Mr. Patel is a right-wing operative who has vowed to use the position to exact revenge on Mr. Trump’s adversaries.
• Pam Bondi, Attorney General – A former Florida attorney general with ties to Trump’s legal battles. Faced scrutiny for dropping a Trump University fraud investigation after receiving a $25,000 donation from Trump’s foundation.
• Pete Hegseth, Defense Secretary – A Fox News host with military experience but no Pentagon leadership background. Unlike past Defense Secretaries, he has never held a senior military or civilian leadership role in the Department of Defense.
• Kristi Noem, Homeland Security Secretary – A governor with no direct national security experience.
• Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Labor Secretary – A former congresswoman with limited labor policy experience.
• John Ratcliffe, CIA Director – A former congressman with a history of politicizing intelligence.
• Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence – A former Democratic congresswoman with a controversial record on foreign policy.
• Mehmet Oz, Medicare and Medicaid Administrator – A TV doctor known for promoting dubious medical treatments.
• Lee Zeldin, EPA Administrator – A politician with a record of voting against environmental protections.
• Elise Stefanik, UN Ambassador – A Trump loyalist with little foreign policy experience.
• Robert F. Kennedy Jr., HHS Secretary – A vaccine skeptic with no public health credentials.
• Doug Burgum, Interior Secretary – A governor with strong fossil fuel industry ties.
• Doug Collins, Veterans Affairs Secretary – A former congressman with military chaplain experience but no VA leadership background.
• Scott Bessent, Treasury Secretary – A hedge fund billionaire with financial conflicts of interest.
• Brooke Rollins, Agriculture Secretary – A conservative think tank executive with no agricultural policy background.
• Howard Lutnick, Commerce Secretary – A Wall Street executive facing potential conflicts of interest.
• Sean Duffy, Transportation Secretary – A reality TV star turned congressman with no transportation policy experience.

The lineup underscores the blatant hypocrisy at play. The GOP’s claim that DEI threatens meritocracy is a smokescreen for their real objective: consolidating power and rewarding loyalty over competence. If Republicans were truly concerned about merit, they would demand expertise in governance—not just fealty to Trump.

You got played, MAGA. You elected the Keystone cops – the gang that couldn’t shoot straight!

Predicting the winner of a U.S. Presidential election is especially hard in this election year. The candidates are running close to 50-50 and voters are highly polarized. The two candidates have extremely different views of what is the Common Good.

So we choose not to make a prediction.

However, we want to vote. If this was an election in Australia, we would have to vote or pay a fee for not voting.  Furthermore, we would have to rank our candidate preferences if there are three or more candidates.

But we are American citizens. Also, we are largely independent voters.  We aren’t one-issue voter although this would make it easy.  For example, what if we cared only about abortion and voted for the candidate who favors abortion rights for women. We really want to consider all the policy differences between the two candidates.  

How can we do that?

Let’s imagine the economic, social and political outcomes that are likely to follow from each candidate being elected.

Our best step is to list the outcomes that we expect to follow with each candidate if elected. We stand ready to revise our views.  In fact, we invite you, the reader, to look at the two lists.  Feel free to add missing outcomes.

You can send your revised list to us >>  info (at) fixcapitalism dot com >>

Here are our initial lists:

What will happen if Trump wins the 2024 Presidency?

1. Economic chaos as higher prices result from Trump’s rising tariffs and irrational trade policies
2. Cutbacks and/or elimination of Social Security, Medicare, and the possible repeal of Obamacare
3. Social chaos with increased violence towards minorities, workers, and union organizers
4. Political arrests targeting opponents (Trump has also said anyone criticizing the Supreme Court should be jailed)
5. Government appointments not based on merit but ideology (existing government employees will be purged unless they are loyal to Trump)
6. Fewer dependable allies from abroad as NATO(and the EU) is abandoned; China becomes stronger as Taiwan is abandoned
7. Russian power increases as Ukraine is left to itself; US pivots to possible war against Iran
8. Climate problems worsen – pollution regulations are eliminated; drilling allowed in National Parks
9. Polarization and hatred worsen as “remigration” and forced deportation is scaled up
10. Leadership focuses on past grievances – including personal vendettas against people who didn’t support Trump
11. Possibility of mental deterioration of Trump after election – leading to the installation of JD Vance as President
12. Women lose their reproductive rights, and other civil rights as well
13. More tax cuts for the rich and corporate interests, leading to further deficits (military programs to increase at the expense of everything else)
14. Increase in Christian Nationalism and intolerance for other faiths
15. Implementation of Project 2025 and abandonment of constitutional boundaries

What will happen if Harris wins the Presidency?

1. Lower prices as Inflation continues to fall; corporate price-gouging is dissuaded
2. Major job creation with new factories and new investments in renewabletechnologies
3. Higher taxes on the super-rich and corporate profits to support better health and education – this funds Social Security and eliminates austerity measures
4. Strong dependable allies abroad – NATO is supported to create a better, secure future
5. More progress in controlling climate problems – investment in renewables and battery technologies
6. Her international experience will further peacemaking to reduce international disputes
7. Union support instead of opposition and more worker benefits including a higher minimum wage
8. Less polarization and more goodwill amongst the general population; opposition to the culture wars
9. Leadership is younger and motivating for younger generations
10. Women’s rights are secured nationally and across states; abortion rights are strengthened
11.  Church and state are kept separate and America avoids a decline into Christian Nationalism by embracing a culture of respect
12.  Increased regional investments in Latin America to encourage residents to remain in their home countries
13. Support for a two-state solution regarding Israel and Palestine
14. Support for  job-creation through small business and start-up incentives
15. Corporates and billionaires pay a fairer share of taxes

Does this comparison of likely outcomes help you choose your candidate?

ASK: Which candidate is working for the Common Good? Which candiadte is working for the future wellbeing of our children?  Which candidate has demonstrated a commitment to justice?

May the best candidate win.

Has capitalism taken us over the cliff? And why can’t we stop?

Marjorie Kelly‘s most recent book, Wealth Supremacy: How the Extractive Economy and the Biased Rules of Capitalism Drive Today’s Crises is one of the most important explanations of how wealth and power have created an unlivable world and sacrificed the future for the greed of a few.

Why aren’t the SDGs working? Why can’t our politicians do the right thing?

The first answer: wealth supremacy.

Wealth supremacy is defined as the cultural and political processes and attitudes by which persons of wealth accumulate and maintain prestige, privileges, and power that others lack.

The impact of wealth supremacy is everywhere.  Kelly explains:

It’s about status, in a culture where the wealthy are revered as the possessors of godlike powers. It’s about influence, including the power to control philanthropy. It’s about political and legal power-including the power to finance candidates, to influence lawmaking through lobbying, and to escape the justice system that ensnares those without wealth.

(And, in case you were wondering, Kelly shows us the link between wealth supremacy and white supremacy).

The second answer: capital bias.

Capital bias is defined as the idea of making as much money as possible, which primarily benefits those who are already wealthy.

Kelly explains that this bias is present in the systems and institutions that allow money to wield significant influence. Capital represents the active side of wealth. It’s the money that’s expected to keep growing endlessly. Capital is what drives wealth, and it does this through various means like making profits, setting the rules of accounting, and blurring the line between speculation and investment.

When you put wealth supremacy and capital bias together, you have the “DNA of our capital-centric economic system.” These intertwined biases shape how the system operates, grows, and sustains itself. The goal is to keep the rich at the top, safe and comfortable, and capital bias is the way they achieve this. Capital bias is the essence of the system, and this system is what we call capitalism.

The Root Cause of the Polycrisis

Kelly shows us that systemic wealth extraction has become “the deep force sapping the resilience of our society, driving, exacerbating, or profiting from the largest crises of our day.”

The interconnected world of systemic risks–climate change, biodiversity loss, deepening inequality, and rising authoritarianism are converging into what’s being called a polycrisis.  Kelly explains that while ecological overshoot is one root cause of the polycrisis, equally implicated is financial overshoot: the accumulation of too much financial wealth, even as the system remains intent on a limitless more. US financial assets are five times the size of GDP, a ballooning since the 1950s, when assets and GDP were roughly equal in size.

Kelly spells out the connections:

The long rise of irresponsible consumption has been driven by the corporate drive to maximize profits. Our efforts to tackle climate change have been blocked by the misdirection of fossil fuel companies and the capture of politics by monied interests.

As a global food crisis has unfolded, corporations have been out there using inflation to hide outsized price increases.? The white working class, left adrift by the loss of good jobs, finds its anger misdirected into racial and misogynistic hatred by the conservative forces determined to retain or reinstate the social order governed by wealth, by men, by whites.

Many of us don’t fully grasp how the complex, obscure, mathematical rules and norms of our extractive system lie behind these crises. It’s rarely explained to us how expanding pools of great wealth create and rely upon the precarity and indebtedness of the rest of us. Instead, our culture tends to view “wealth creation” as benign and wonderful. This bias toward wealth makes it difficult for us to digest the warnings of economists that the world is awash in far too much financial capital, just as the atmosphere is awash in too much carbon.

Naming the Disease that Ails Us

Kelly’s expose shows us the way out: the first step must be to name the disease, to in see how wealth supremacy lies at the very core of our economic system, and our mental map of reality itself.  The narratives we are taught perpetuate wealth supremacy – Kelly calls theme the myths of wealth supremacy.

The relentless financialization of everything leads to the decimation of workers, as capital drives labor income – and labor itself–out of the economy. She adds: Even more frightening is how the hard right, fueled by plutocratic dark money, now seeks to eradicate democracy in its quest to keep powering the machine that supports … the “unseen ruling class.”

The 7 Myths of Wealth Supremacy

Kelly maps out the seven myths of wealth supremacy—the bias that institutionalizes infinite extraction of wealth by and for the wealthy and is the hidden force behind the polycrisis:

1. The Myth of Maximizing—No amount of wealth is ever enough.
2. The Myth of Fiduciary Duty—Corporate managers’ most sacred duty is to expand capital.
3. The Myth of Corporate Governance—Corporate membership must be reserved for capital alone.
4. The Myth of the Income Statement—Income to capital must always be increased, while income to labor must always be decreased.
5. The Myth of Materiality—Profit—that is, material gain-alone is real, while social and environmental damages are not.
6. The Myth of Takings—The first duty of government must be the protection of private property.
7. The Myth of the Free Market—There should be no limits on the sphere of influence of corporations and capital.

Kelly’s explanation of how these myths block us from doing the right thing for the future is a tremendous contribution to the growing debate around regeneration, and a regenerative economy.  Kelly and Ted Howard defined the democratic economy in their book The Making of a Democratic Economy:

A democratic economy is an economy of the people, by the people, and for the people. It’s an economy that, in its fundamental design, aims to meet the essential needs of all of us, balance human consumption with the regenerative capacity of the earth, respond to the voices and concerns of regular people, and share prosperity without regard to race, gender, national origin, or wealth. At the core of a democratic economy is the Common Good, in keeping with the founding aims of democracy in politics.

The Steps towards a Democratic Economy

SO what must be done?  Kelly offers a blueprint for the shift we need:

1. Breaking the Trance: We Participate in System Change
   When We Change Our Minds
2. Pranks, New Naming, and Other Subversive Acts: Helping Others to Awaken
3. The Democratic Economy: Imagining Its Design, Seeing Its Models Demonstrated
4. Democratizing Finance: Pathways Toward a Next System of Capital
5. Beginning Where You Live: Building Community Wealth

Each of these steps is explored in detail in her magnificent book!

I’m especially struck by Kelly’s clear explanation of the differing visions we see in the politics of our time, not just in the US.  Here’s Kelly again:

“In the economic world envisioned by neoliberals, the rights-bearing citizens are corporations and investors. Democracy is about protecting human rights and the rights of nature.”

Which one do you choose?

Repurposing the Corporation

In our book on regeneration, we argue that the corporation is obsolete. Kelly agrees. Here’s her take on what needs to happen:

The challenge is to envision, and create, private enterprises and investing processes that remove capital bias. Enterprises may still be profit making; that’s an imperative of staying in business. What is dangerous, … is the unfettered aim of profit maximizing.

There’s much, much more.  We’re running out of time, and Kelly’s timely book is a force for the change we so desperately need.

About Marjorie Kelly

Marjorie Kelly is a Distinguished Senior Fellow with The Democracy Collaborative and has authored several books before this one, including The Making of a Democratic Economy with Ted Howard, Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution, and The Divine Right of Capital: Dethroning the Corporate Aristocracy

Kelly argues instead for the democratization of ownership: public ownership of vital services, worker-owned businesses, and more. And she sketches the outlines of a nonextractive capitalism that would be subordinate to the public interest. This is an ambitious reimagining of the very foundations of our economy and society.

Kelly and her colleagues at The Democracy Collaborative played a pivotal role in advising and designing the launch of the Fund for Employee Ownership, now hosted at the Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland. Originally consisting of a network of three worker-owned firms, the fund has expanded to include four new firms through conversions. Additionally, Kelly co-authored research on the role of capital in scaling up employee ownership and conducted research and convening on the model of 50 employee-owned firms that are also B Corporations, which she terms “next-generation enterprises.” Jay Coen Gilbert credits Kelly with inspiring the creation of the B Movement of B Corporations through her book “The Divine Right of Capital.” Prior to her current role, she served as a Fellow at the Tellus Institute and co-founded and served as president of Business Ethics magazine.

GET the BOOK >> Wealth Supremacy: How the Extractive Economy and the Biased Rules of Capitalism Drive Today’s Crises

Christian Sarkar is the co-author (with Philip Kotler and Enrico Foglia) of REGENERATION: The Future of Community in a Permacrisis World – IDEA BITE PRESS (May, 2023)

In our book – REGENERATION: The Future of Community in a Permacrisis World, we point out that in the US today, we see that our politicians can’t even stand up to the NRA, let alone address climate collapse.  Instead, they distract us with culture wars and fake controversy – banning books, and literally canceling democracy via gerrymandering and voter suppression.

Shouldn’t our governments be promoting the Common Good?  Isn’t that the definition of regenerative governance?  Here’s a citizen’s checklist we compiled – does your government check the boxes?

If you were to grade your elected government officials against their support  for the Common Good, you might get a better idea if they really care about you and your children’s children.

Christian Sarkar, Philip Kotler, and Enrico Foglia are the co-founders of The Regenerative Marketing Institute, and the joint authors of REGENERATION: The Future of Community in a Permacrisis World.

After the FBI completed a lawful search of former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on Aug. 8, 2022, conservative politicians responded with one of three strategies: silence, circumspection and attack.

Many responses echoed Trump’s own framing of the search. In his Aug. 8 message he claimed his residence was “under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents.” In the statement, replete with war metaphors, Trump alleged that executing a legal warrant was “the weaponization of the Justice System” and an “assault” that “could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries.”

Trump’s framing of the event was quickly echoed by most Republican politicians commenting immediately on Twitter, despite the fact that they, like Democrats and the public, lacked relevant knowledge of the facts of the case that prompted the search and seizure of classified documents.

The impulse to hastily legitimize Trump’s perspective illustrates a dangerous rhetorical strategy frequently employed by GOP politicians during the Trump era: message laundering.

Conditioned to accept violence

Message laundering occurs when inflammatory language and/or unsubstantiated claims are mixed with mainstream partisan communication and presented to the public with an air of respectability. Just as money laundering enabled mobsters to disguise their ill-gotten gain as the profits of a legitimate business, message laundering presents dishonest and dangerous speech as credible, innocuous or persuasive.

As a political communication scholar, I study how rhetoric strengthens or erodes democratic institutions. The aftermath of the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search illustrates how message laundering can undermine democratic processes and gradually condition its audience to expect and accept violence.

After Trump released his statement, conservative politicians echoed key aspects of his message. Some sanitized Trump’s ideas by combining them with more measured critique or references to democratic processes.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., decried an “intolerable state of weaponized politicization” in the Justice Department, even as he promised to “follow the facts” and “leave no stone unturned” if the GOP retook the House. Democrats interpreted his directive to Attorney General Merrick Garland, “preserve your documents and clear your calendar,” as a threat. But the tweet launders Trump’s notion of a weaponized Justice Department by combining it with McCarthy’s promise to use democratic processes to “follow the facts.”

Similarly, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem recycled Trump’s war metaphors in her tweet, saying, “The FBI raid on President Trump’s home is an unprecedented political weaponization of the Justice Department.” She tempered that imagery, however, by appealing to the rule of law in the same tweet, asserting that “using the criminal justice system in this manner is un-American.”

Not all of the GOP’s early statements were measured, however. Some laundered more extreme ideas and edged readers toward an acceptance of violence.

In a tweet sent the night of the search, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis labeled the search a “raid” and described it as “another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents.” He continued, saying, “Now the Regime is getting another 87k IRS agents to wield against its adversaries? Banana Republic.”

DeSantis’ invocation of “the Regime” legitimizes a fringe notion peddled by Michael Anton, a right-wing commentator and member of Trump’s administration. Anton speculates that Democratic elected officials would work in concert with members of the Biden administration, liberal judges and the media – who, together, form “the regime” – to prevent Trump from taking office again using legal or illegal means.

DeSantis referenced a budgetary item included in the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act that would allocate “$80 billion to the IRS.”

McCarthy also referred to that aspect of the bill, alleging a “new army of 87,000 IRS agents” are “coming for” American taxpayers. Politifact and The Washington Post debunked the notion. Yet Republicans repeatedly made that argument.

‘Gestapo’ and ‘brown shirts’

The imagery of an “army” of federal agents turned against ordinary Americans via legislative mandate legitimized the alarmist rhetoric that followed. As GOP tweets coalesced, the line item from the Inflation Reduction Act merged with reports of the Mar-a-Lago search in ways designed to make individual voters feel vulnerable.

Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., tweeted, “If they weaponize the FBI to go after President Trump, they will surely weaponize the IRS’s 87,000 new agents to go after you.”

The GOP members of the House Judiciary Committee tweeted, “If they can do it to a former President, imagine what they can do to you.” Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., tweeted, “This #DepartmentofInjustice must be held accountable. It was President Trump today, but it’s you next if we don’t take a stand.”

After making audiences feel personally threatened, GOP messaging returned to the war posture implied in Trump’s original statement.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., tweeted that the FBI “raiding President Trump’s home” was the “type of things that happen in countries during civil war.” Conservative pundits and politicians cast FBI agents as “Gestapo” and “brown shirts,” the latter referring to Hitler’s storm troopers. In an interview on Fox News, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., exclaimed, “This should scare the living daylights out of America citizens” and compared the U.S. federal government to the Nazis, the Soviet Union and Latin American dictatorships.

What’s next, #CivilWar?

Communication scholars have observed that once political opponents are cast in those terms, democratic remedies are insufficient. The opponent must be destroyed, and violent repercussions seem reasonable.

A Bloomberg newsletter noted that during the week of Aug. 8, the #CivilWar hashtag gained traction on various platforms, reflecting a “war-time mentality (that) has become increasingly common since it’s started to find footing with politicians.”

The Texas Nationalist Movement issued a statement citing the “raid” on Mar-a-Lago, the “weaponization and politicization of federal instruments of power” and the “announcement of the hiring of 87,000 IRS agents” as grounds for Texas to secede.

During the week that followed the Mar-a-Lago search, FBI officials reported numerous instances of individuals threatening FBI field offices, with some confrontations ending in violence. On Aug. 12, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security released a joint bulletin documenting an increase in violent threats to law enforcement and other government officials.

Message laundering does not always result in politically motivated violence, but it can make violence seem like a logical and reasonable response to partisan disagreement. Voters should be aware of this rhetorical tactic.

Karrin Vasby Anderson, Professor of Communication Studies, Colorado State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

IMAGE: Supporters of former President Donald Trump rally in Bedminster, N.J., on Aug. 14, 2022. Kyle Mazza/Andalou Agency via Getty Images