kakistocracy (anglais) / kakistocratie (français)

[Moutik]

Kakistocracy, n. Gouvernement par les pires.

Du grec κάκιστος, superlatif de κακός « mauvais », et de κρατέω « être fort, dominer, régner ».
Sur le modèle d’aristocracy.

Titre d’un article :
Ibrahim Warde, « Kakistocratie », Le Monde diplomatique, juin 2020.

Le mot, attesté en 1644, est redevenu en usage durant le mandat de Donald Trump.
On se demande bien pourquoi…

[Moutik]

Voici le texte où kakistocracy est attesté en 1644 :

Therefore we need not make any scruple of praying against such: against those Sanctimonious Incendiaries, who have fetched fire from heaven to set their Country in combustion, have pretended Religion to raise and maintaine a most wicked rebellion: against those Nero's, who have ripped up the wombe of the mother that bare them, and wounded the breasts that gave them sucke: against those Cannibal's who feed upon the flesh and are drunke with the bloud of their own brethren: against those Catiline's who seeke their private ends in the publicke disturbance, and have set the Kingdome on fire to rost their owne egges: against those tempests of the State, those restlesse spirits who can no longer live, then be stickling and medling; who are stung with a perpetuall itch of changing and innovating, transforming our old Hierarchy into a new Presbytery, and this againe into a newer Independency; and our well-temperd Monarchy into a mad kinde of Kakistocracy. Good Lord! what wild irregular courses have these men runne, since the reines have layen loose upon them? I am afraid, they will never leave chopping and changing, plotting and practising, till in conclusion they bring all to confusion, all to an Anarchy or savage Ataxie, Prayer, Peace, Ierusalem, and all. Therefore it is no breach of charity to pray against these men. How long, Lord, how long holy and just shall our bloud and wrongs be unreveng'd upon them? how long shall the Devill and his instruments have place and power to deface and defile thy Temples, to profane thy service, to persecute thy ministers, to pursue the life and honour of thine Anointed, and to seduce the silly people like sheepe to the slaughter? How long shall they blaspheme thy Name and Religion by making it an instrument of such hellish practises? How long Lord, how long holy and just?

A sermon preached at the publique fast the ninth day of Aug. 1644 at St. Maries, Oxford, before the honorable members of the two Houses of Parliament there assembled by Paul Gosnold
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A41582.0001.001?view=toc

Ne me demandez pas de traduire, c’est au-delà de mes compétences.

[Papou JC]

En résumé : c'est un sermon de style très cicéronien dans lequel le prédicateur, Paul Gosnold, devant les deux Chambres réunies, s'en prend aux partisans de Cromwell coupables de mettre le pays à feu et à sang.