Thanks, Susan Schwartz, for calling my attention to this column by Paul Krugman and a new word for my vocabulary.

 

He writes about whether civil rights hero John Lewis showed “disrespect” to Trump by saying that his election was not legitimate.

 

Of course not. Many questions hang over this election:

 

By any reasonable standard, the 2016 election was deeply tainted. It wasn’t just the effects of Russian intervention on Mr. Trump’s behalf; Hillary Clinton would almost surely have won if the F.B.I. hadn’t conveyed the false impression that it had damaging new information about her, just days before the vote. This was grotesque, delegitimizing malfeasance, especially in contrast with the agency’s refusal to discuss the Russia connection.

 

Was there even more to it? Did the Trump campaign actively coordinate with a foreign power? Did a cabal within the F.B.I. deliberately slow-walk investigations into that possibility? Are the lurid tales about adventures in Moscow true? We don’t know, although Mr. Trump’s creepy obsequiousness to Vladimir Putin makes it hard to dismiss these allegations. Even given what we do know, however, no previous U.S. president-elect has had less right to the title. So why shouldn’t we question his legitimacy?

 

And talking frankly about how Mr. Trump gained power isn’t just about truth-telling. It may also help to limit that power.

 

Will Trump destroy NATO? Will he wreck government healthcare? Will he turn environmental policy over to the fossil fuel industry? Will he ruin public education? This is what is meant by kakistocracy.