What will it take to stop kakistocracy?

Editor's note: Kakistocracy means government by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous people. It comes from the Greek kakistos (κάκιστος, "worst," the superlative of kakos, "bad") + kratos (κράτος, "rule" or "power"), on the model of words like aristocracy or democracy (an oligarchs wet dream). The term dates back to at least the 17th century (with an early recorded use in 1644) and was later popularized in the early 19th century. Thomas Jefferson frequently discussed related ideas, especially the contrast between a hereditary aristocracy and what he called a "natural aristocracy" of "virtue and talents." In an 1813 letter to John Adams, he wrote: "There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents." He saw this as the desirable basis for leadership, as opposed to rule by the unqualified or the merely privileged (money power running a "financial kill chain") kakistocracy. What will it take to end kakistocracy in America? Violence? Blood in the streets? The productive class pushed to the extreme?