Imagine you sent out a team to scour every high school in the US, selected a cross section of 535 of the worst behaved, most immature, selfish, lazy, and arrogant teenagers, then stranded them on an island and watched what happens.
Think "Lord of the Flies".
Oh, wait. That is exactly what Washington, D.C. is like these days.
We are governed by the absolute worst people I have seen in my six decades of life on the planet.
There is a reason F.A. Hayek dedicated an entire chapter of "Road to Serfdom" to "Why the Worst Get on Top" and why we should pay attention to his words if we ever want to end such governance.
Hayek noted there are three main reasons why such a numerous and strong group with fairly homogeneous views is not likely to be formed by the best people but will be created by the worst elements of any society and why, by the standards by which most moral and reasonable people abide, the principles on which such a group would be selected will be almost entirely negative.
First would be the unity of people with low standards.
It is interesting that in Hayek’s day the thought was that it was “probably true that in general the higher the education and intelligence of individuals becomes, the more their views and tastes are differentiated and the less likely they are to agree on a particular hierarchy of values” and that one would have to descend to levels where the more primitive and “common” instincts prevail. Unfortunately, the more the word “diversity” was talked about in the faculty lounges, the less diverse the education and intelligence of individuals became.
Where Hayek proposed that the largest group of people who hold very similar values are the people with low standards, and in 1944 that might have been true, now those people are some of the most credentialed, breaking the logic that the higher educated exhibit the most differentiated views and tastes. Although this is a departure from his original logic, his premise still stands because low standards are the rallying point for the worst people, regardless of educational attainment.
Secondly, Hayek proposed bad leaders would “be able to obtain the support of all the docile and gullible, who have no strong convictions of their own but are prepared to accept a ready-made system of values if it is only drummed into their ears sufficiently loudly and frequently. It will be those whose vague and imperfectly formed ideas are easily swayed and whose passions and emotions are readily aroused who will thus swell the ranks of the totalitarian party.”
The last reason, and perhaps the most negative of the selection process – and dangerous - has to do with how demagogues can work to weld together a closely coherent and homogeneous body of true believers, their followers, and supporters. It seems to be almost an iron law of human nature it is easier for people to agree on a negative than a positive program of action. In our current situation, things like the hatred of an enemy, the envy of those better off, than to agree on any positive task or aspect. For example, it is easier for the demagogues in Washington to focus the anger on the so-called “insurrectionists” of January 6th than any positive aspect of their own agenda (assuming there are any).
It isn’t by chance the worst get where they are, there are reasons and processes by which they get there. Understanding how this works provides us tools to stop them.