After the Greek elections: crystal-ball gazing

Syriza, a far-left party with many Marxists, won the 2015 Greek election. They replace New Democracy, a middle-of-the-road party that failed to solve Greece’s economic woes. Of course the left-Marxism of Syriza will also fail to solve those woes and will make them worse.

When that happens, to whom will the Greeks turn next?

Note who came in third in the 2015 election:

Golden Dawn is a neo-National-Socialist party about which I’ve written here. Their political platform combines economic socialism with racialist nationalism.

So one crystal-ball prediction is that in a few years many Greeks will be saying: New Democracy failed, Syriza failed, so let’s give Golden Dawn a chance.

A glance backwards to Germany in the 1920s is worth consideration. The Germans were suffering economic woes. They felt they were being victimized by foreign powers. After their middle-of-the road party failed to solve Germany’s economic woes, voters increasingly waffled between supporting various far-left-socialist parties and a rising National Socialist party.

Another indicator: Syriza has formed a coalition with the Independent Greeks, a nationalist party that believes that Greece has been the victim of an “international conspiracy” and that calls for a “national awakening and uprising.”

And when one combines left socialism with right nationalism, one gets …

Sources:

Chart image snipped from The Wall Street Journal.

My article on Golden Dawn: “The Revival of Nazism in Europe — It’s Not Just Racism.” Portuguese translation by Matheus Pacini: “O renascimento do nazismo na Europa – não é somente racismo.”

My Nietzsche and the Nazis, which covers the 1920s German political context and the extent to which Nietzsche’s philosophy contributed to the theory and practice of National Socialism’s intellectuals and politicians.