Political terminology

The results of the 2024 US presidential election rattled the country and sent shockwaves across the world - or were cause for celebration, depending on who you ask. Is it any surprise then that the Merriam-Webster word of the year is "polarization"?

National Economy and Finance Minister Kostis Hatzidakis warned against populism and stressed that the geopolitical conditions require even more fiscal sensibility than before.

Whoever claims that the culture of absolute political correctness never prevailed in Greece must have lived somewhere else for the last 50 years. Yes, we never became a country where schools and public restrooms had three types of toilets, nor did we ask elementary school children to declare their gender without a right to redress.

Wednesday did not dawn with the results of yet another US election contest. No. It dawned with the triumph and absolute hegemony of a charismatic populist political leader, and the complete and spectacular failure of the elite who for decades ruled the two major parties, the media, the major universities and the traditional part of Wall Street.

The U.S. candidates in the ongoing elections have broken fundraising records, amassing a total of $15.9 billion, according to OpenSecrets, which gathered the data.

They live, work, and prosper far from Greece, but as they have consistently emphasized, our country is the biggest part of their hearts. Apart from the “cuteness”, they have a dream to be able to help our country in a meaningful way and also to give a new dimension to the term “homogeneity.”

2024 is set to be the largest election year in history, with 60 countries representing half of the world's population holding national elections. Yet, all eyes are on the US, where this November, the world's most consequential democracy will choose between two diametrically different candidates amid an ongoing economic, social and technological change. 

The most convenient interpretation is that SYRIZA won the elections 10 years ago as an anti-austerity party rather than a left-wing one. This, the theory goes, led to a gradual loss of support as the party adjusted to fiscal realism and European rationalism.

Listening to the attitudes that have prevailed for decades in the public discourse on our "national issues," you'd think that Greece likens itself, somehow, to Israel, with patriotism and extreme patriotism in particular, running rampant.

Has the Greek government heard anything about the upgraded role of the state in the countries of advanced capitalism, or has it tightly secured its ideological blinders to protect itself from such an eventuality?