Politics and the moral high ground
Even if a sample of 213 people may not be sufficient to draw the following conclusions, we can loosely surmise that some 70 of the men who responded to an ad on a dating app on which the 12-year-old girl in Kolonos was being pimped were supporters of New Democracy, another 60 or so voted SYRIZA and 80, more or less, supported one of the smaller parties. Statistically, therefore, it is much more likely to come across someone on the list who supports the governing conservatives or the main leftist opposition than it is someone who votes for the Greek Communist Party (KKE).
Does this mean that KKE has some kind of moral advantage gained from SYRIZA’s loss of it? Of course not. The so-called “moral advantage of the Left” that SYRIZA has been going on and on about for so long is a statistical fact, not a social or political reality. For example, the Greek Ecologists party has zero corrupt supporters because it has zero supporters.
There is, however, another parameter to consider. With a state that manages and distributes more than 50% of the wealth the country produces, it is obvious that sundry hustlers will side with the parties that have a chance to govern so they can make a grab for a piece of the pie. They wouldn’t choose a coalition that garners just 3%, but a SYRIZA that can draw 30-35% of the vote holds much more promise. The rats will always go where the pickings are better.
The vulgar moralistic rubbish we have seen tainting the public discourse (like the #ND_pederasts hashtag, which even made its way to Parliament through SYRIZA MP Anna Vagena) is not fertile political debate. Corruption, misconduct, crime and sexual perversion do not have a political identity. This is a discussion that is only useful to fuel discord on social media, where it should also remain.
Political parties are judged, however (and should be, strictly), by two things: What they did before the bad deed happened and how they react after it happens. New Democracy, for example, needs to look into why its incredible – as touted – screening process for party officials allowed the likes of Andreas Patsis to get through. Is the evaluation mechanism nothing more than hype, or did something else go wrong and the candidate’s finances were not properly checked?
People have been let down by the MPs they elected on many occasions. Usually it’s because the ones touting high morals end up being more immoral than the “sinners” they were trying to replace. So the issue is not about vague promises (just as morals are vague), but about the institutions at work so that the immoral are compelled to act morally.
