Kakistocracy

There’s something fundamentally rotten in the way power operates in this country. I’m not talking about hot mic gaffes or tabloid-level scandals. I’m talking about a deliberate erosion of public life, a strategic dismantling of institutions, a state that no longer serves the people but shields one man who no longer governs — he fortifies.

Kakistocracy. The word is ugly. Sharp. Feels like it should be spit out, not spoken. From the Greek kakistos — the worst — and kratos — rule, power. Government by the worst. First coined in the seventeenth century as a warning, a curse for when the bottom rises to the top. It’s never fit more perfectly than it does now. This is not a failure of leadership — it’s a system. A machine built to reward mediocrity, to elevate cynics, to protect the least qualified. Impunity demands control. Control corrodes systems. Corroded systems manufacture more impunity. The mechanism closes in on itself — and grinds downward.

Netanyahu doesn’t lead on behalf of the nation. He leads for himself. There is no national vision, only a strategy of escape. Every alliance, every speech, every maneuver is designed to delay the moment he stands before the law. The office is no longer a position of duty — it’s a fortress. And the country is his last line of defense.

The charges? Everyone knows them. The evidence is public. What’s shocking isn’t what he’s accused of — it’s that he still sits in power, issuing directives, shaping policy, pretending that legitimacy comes from holding on, not being worthy.

These aren’t isolated abuses. They’re the inner workings of a method. The shady deals, the offshore handshakes, the doublespeak with regimes condemned in daylight and courted at night — none of it is a bug. It’s the operating system.

The campaign to gut the judiciary isn’t a misstep. It’s the blueprint. And it’s active. Targeted appointments, nonstop efforts to discredit the Supreme Court, legislative strikes on judicial independence — this isn’t reform. It’s conquest. The quiet, patient neutralization of the last institution that still draws a line.

Some of the public resists. Some. They march. They speak out. They hold the line. But many are silent. Some are tired. Some have made peace with the noise. And still, the campaign moves forward. Because the goal isn’t to win — it’s to drag it out. To stretch the crisis until the opposition breaks under its own exhaustion.

Meanwhile, the country splinters.

Gaza remains locked in. The West Bank expands under permanent occupation. Peace has become a punchline. And when the catastrophe of October 7 revealed the collapse of Israel’s security doctrine, no one could pretend it came out of nowhere. The warnings were there. But the attention was elsewhere. The price was paid in blood. The blame — diffused, deflected, denied.

This cabinet isn’t a glitch. It’s the mirror. Figures once considered unfit now sign executive orders. Not despite their extremism — because of it. They create the chaos that justifies the consolidation. They fan the flames. They keep the machine running.

Inequality has hardened into policy. The ultra-Orthodox exemption from military service? Just the most visible crack. Secular kids go to the front. Others are spared by backroom bargains. Fairness is now a privilege to be bartered.

But the most devastating blow wasn’t to law or policy. It was to language itself.

Dissent is betrayal. Human rights are suspect. Even saying “occupation” is treated as treason. The vocabulary has been hijacked. And when language breaks, thought breaks with it. Without words, there is no argument. Just barricades.

Trust has collapsed. Authority is a hollow pose. Yet the machinery grinds on — powered by fear, fatigue, and silence.

Still, none of this is irreversible.

There are voices refusing to quiet down. Professionals still exposing the rot. People who haven’t accepted deception as destiny. And that matters. Because kakistocracy is not fate. It’s a decision. And decisions can be undone.

What’s at stake isn’t just who holds office.

It’s who we’re willing to become.

Either we open the eyes of our blind friends.

Or we go down with the incompetents.